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PRINCIPLES 



O F 



MEDIO IISTE, 



AND 



MEDICINE 



K 



W ITHOUT 



PRINCIPLE, 

By E. DeVOE, 



MEADVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA. 



PRICE, FIFTY CENTS. 



\JJ. } 



%A 



BUFFALO: 









BAKER & JONES, PRINTERS, 220 & 222 WASHINGTON STREET. 

1869. 




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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand right hundred and sixty-nine 

BY ELIJAH DeYOE, 
in the District Court of the United States, for the Northern District of New York. 



PREFACE 



•\ < '•^./-^<*^./"»>-».'• , v/•^.'•*\>"^.< , ' 



When I first entered upon the duties of a Physician, I was struck by the fact that 
Medical Practice of all schools was destitute of any reliable principles governing treat_ 
ment of disease. That there was no certainty that the treatment of different physicians 
of any School of Medicine would be based upon the same fundamental ideas in any 
given case. Physicians of every school are liable to differ in regard to the expression 
of disease. They are also liable to differ as to treatment, even when they agree in 
diagnosis, i. e., in the description of disease. As I gained experience in the use of 
medicines I discovered certain land-marks or principles which have guided me in their 
application; and I have never known them to betray me. 

I publish an outline of these principles, because I believe them to be of great 
value to the public. Although a knowledge of them may not qualify every individual 
always to dispense with a professional doctor, it may, and should be, a protection 
against medical imposition; and, furthermore, we deem it but fair that one who finds 
fault with the practice of others should show a better way. 

It seems remarkable that principles so obvious and so demonstrable should never 
have been given to the world before, but it does not surprise me that they have never 
been set forth, advocated or practised upon by any medical sect. Being of universal 
application, their advocacy would not promote sectarian interest, which requires exclu- 
siveness. They are simple and comprehensible, and if generally adopted by physicians 
would soon become the property of the public. And just to the extent that medicine 
becomes popularized, professional doctors are flanked and driven to other vocations for 
a livelihood. 

The reader need not be surprised when he learns that this little book will meet 
with no approval from sectarian doctors. It does nothing for them. So far as it has 
any inflnence it will abate their power and their incomes. How can they afford to 
speak well of it ? If these pages shall only serve to stimulate more popular discuF- 
sion of medical matters, the writer will feel compensated for the trouble of their pre. 
paration. 



INTRODUCTION 



The legitimate source of knowledge is experience. Knowledge is diffused by 
communication of ideas. There would be very little progress without discus- 
sion. It is plain then, reader, that your own interest should prompt you to 
investigate for yourself all debated questions in which your happiness and 
prosperity are, to any considerable extent, involved . Your health is a matter 
of inestimable importance to you. You may be well to-day, but only casual 
observation ought to convince you that you have no guarantee against the 
approach of disease. It is your duty to acquaint yourself with fundamental 
ideas of true medical art in order to protect yourself against medical imposi- 
tion. Genuine rational principles of medical art are, in themselves, simple and 
easy of comprehension; but they are obscured and hidden beneath the verbiage 
and redundant learning of the schools. Many persons think it their duty to 
study hygiene, but almost all classes are reproachfully ignorant of appropriate 
methods of dealing with acute disorders. This is a deplorable truth, because it 
renders them incompetent to determine when they are well served. We have 
known a great many instances where the physician has been discharged after 
he had essentially conquered the disease of his patient, and another doctor 
called who visited longer and charged more for treating disease of his own 
making than the first doctor received for removing the original disorder. 

To the amateur reader the nosological arrangements of disease by popular 
writers are very pretty, and no doubt enhance his ideas of the amount of 
learning exhausted in the profession — such nice classification of diseases . But 
when acute disease makes its appearance in a family remote from a physician, 
these refinements are worse than useless. They confound and discourage those 
who might otherwise safely undertake domestic treatment. What the people 
want are a few fundamental ideas that are reliable in regard to disease, and to 
the physiological effects of the more important medical agents. A very few 
medicines of the right kind will fulfil nearlv all indications in acute cases. 
Although the human system is liable to a great many forms of acute disease, 
the different conditions calling for different treatment are always reducible to a 
few. They are not obstruse or difficult to comprehend. Men and women in 
all conditions in life may, if they choose, master the art of dealing with them. 
Every western pioneer knows how much may be done with an axe, a saw, a 
hammer and an augur. He also knows very well that the difference in enjoy- 
ment afforded its occupants between the most artistically constructed palace and 
the rude hut of the back- woodsman is not at all commensurate with the differ- 
ence in expense ; and so, domestic treatment, guided by a few great princi- 
ples, and availing itself mainlv of domestic agents in their simplest form, would 
leave little to be done l>v "scientific practice" in acute diseases. 



There is a prevalent notion to the effect that one cannot properly treat a 
patient without knowing what disease he is suffering from. This teaching 
emanates from a sect which exhausts so much learning upon the description of 
disease that it has little, if any, left for cure. It seems plausible, but experience 
proves that it is fallacious. A good medicine, judiciously used, in an advancing 
but indefinite ailment, nineteen times in twenty flanks and totally routs the disturb- 
ance before it reaches distinct development. It may be asked what authority we 
have for such treatment, the answer is, experience, experiment. We have 
nothing but experience and the results of experience to guide us in the treat- 
ment of disease in any stage. This serves as well in primary and indistinct 
stages as it does in any other. To be able to define, classify and name disease 
is no evidence of ability to treat it. The treatment of disease is not ruled by 
its specific form or expression, but by certain signs, symptoms and conditions 
that are more or less common to all acute disorder. 

It is the object of the writer to show, first, that there are enduring principles 
in medicine. That these principles are simple and easy of comprehension, and 
that the most reliable healing arts and agents are always within the reach of the 
people. Second, that popular professional medicine is, in the main, artificial — 
the product of the misapplication of learning and science which are brought 
into requisition, not to aid in healing, but to obscure and nullify simple cura- 
tive arts. 



MEDICAL ART. 



>♦• 



PRINCIPLES OF CURE. 

Medical Art consists in the appropriate treatment of disease. It is naturally 
divided into. two elements or sources. First, that which has for its object the 
study of disease; and second, that which has for its object a knowledge of 
healing agents, and their physiological action and influence on the human sys- 
tem. These two branches of medicine are entirely distinct from each other. 
The possession of one does not imply an acquaintance with the other. The 
most profound knowledge of disease carries with it no ability to cure. There 
is nothing in the nature of disease that indicates its remedy. The most learned 
describers of disease often totally fail in the treatment of it. As healers, they 
are many times excelled by illiterate and unpretending herb doctors. On the 
other hand, the most intimate acquaintance with the medical properties, and 
physiological action of medical agents , does not necessarily determine their uses. 
One may know that this agent acts upon the bowels — another taken into the 
stomach causes emesis or vomiting — a third acts upon the kidneys — a fourth 
causes perspiration — a fifth stimulates, &c. , &c. ; but he may, at the same time, 
be entirely ignorant as to when these actions should be set up. Some knowledge 
of both these branches of medical art is necessary to safe and successful practice. 

The chief difficulty in the way of domestic practice, is the want of a know- 
ledge of disease, or, more properly, an inability to judge correctly of ill condi- 
tions. For the signs and symptoms of these conditions are about all the guide 
we have for the treatment of acute disorder. Of the essential nature of disease, 
the physician knows but little more than his patron. It is an important object 
with medical schools to magnify this difficulty to the domestic practitioner. To 
that end they have made the most transcendental and hair-splitting refinements 
in the classification, nomenclature, description and treatment of disease. The 
natural effect of this is to give fictitious importance to the medical profession — 
discourage humble endeavors to treat disorder and to master the general prin- 
ciples of the healing ait — and also to make the doctor more necessary. But 
this difficulty in judging of disease is more imaginary than real. If the reader 
has seen many cases of acute d isorder treated by regular medical practitioners, in 
the early stages of the disease, he will call to mind the fact that, in most cases, 
when the doctor is asked to name the disturbance, he remains silent or evades 
the question. He does so because he knows but little, if any, more about the 
case than the questioner. He observes signs of acute disorder, but there is no^ 
thing in these which indicates w T hat expression of disease will subsequently re- 
veal itself. But we claim, emphatically, that if the doctor cannot tell what 
specific disorder will follow the first signs of disease, he should always be able 



8 

to treat the patient advantageously. An acquaintance with the primary prin- 
ciples of medicine will scarcely allow him to make a serious mistake. If he 
treats the symptoms present appropriately, it does not signify what form of 
fever, inflammation, or specific disease, may follow, he will have done much to 
abate the malignancy of the succeeding disorder. 

The manner in which most medical works are prepared for popular and pro- 
fessional use, indicates that the writers have very little knowledge of, or faith in, 
general principles as a basis of practice. The names and classification of disease 
they give us, imply that every different expression of it requires peculiar and 
exceptional treatment. So every specific fever and inflammation, as they pre- 
sent them to the public, has the treatment that is supposed to be appropriate to 
it circumstantially detailed. But this mode of dealing with the subject of dis- 
ease, and its treatment, is blinding and misleading to the medical student, for 
the following reason: A great many different expressions of disease, which are 
treated of by these authors, distinctively and specifically, present essentially the 
same conditions of the system, and may be subdued by the same treatment. 

A member of your family is attacked with acute disorder. The first thing 
that occurs to you is, what is the matter ? What is the disease ? If you 
knew, perhaps you could do him some good. 

But you say to yourself, one is liable to a multitude of disorders, and each 
disease has its specific treatment; and you ask yourself, how you can be sup- 
posed to know where, in this long catalogue of disorders, you are to place the 
particular ailment that you now desire to treat ? In answer to which, we say 
that it is not necessary you should know what disease it is that expresses itself 
by the symptoms and signs that attract your attention. It is not necessary that 
you should know the specific character of the disease; it is only necessary that 
you should be capable of judging of the conditions of the system. Almost all 
forms of acute disease belong to the following classes : First, the febrile condi- 
tion; second, the inflammatory; third, spasmodic or nervous. Observation of 
disease, and the effects of medicine, have established the important fact, that all 
these conditions, and certain other exceptional disorders which we have not here 
classed, are controlled and conquered by the same medical agents and influen- 
ces, whatever may be the specific name of the fever, the local expression of the 
inflammation, or the particular form of disturbance. 

In a large proportion of acute attacks, there is some form of fever or inflam- 
mation. It has long been claimed by medical men, that fever is a general in- 
flammation ; and that an inflammation is a local fever. If these propositions 
are not strictly correct, they are sufficiently so for practical purposes. Appro- 
priate treatment for one is good for all, though it may not meet in full the re- 
quirements of each particular case. Inflammation is subject to the same laws, 
and should be treated upon the same principles, whatever may have originated 
it, and whether it be located chiefly in the eyes, head, thorax, abdomen or any 
other locality. Having discovered the presence of fever, inflammation or acute 
other disturbance, these conditions are to be treated at once without regard to 
any special form of disease the future may develope. 

All fevers, and many inflammations, are ushered in by nearly the same 
heralds. The premonitory symptoms of different fevers and inflammations do 
not differ more from one another than symptoms of the same disorder differ in 
different cases. Primary symptoms, as a rule, do not especially characterize 
the form of disorder which may be afterwards developed. Many times pre- 
monitory symptoms, generally supposed to be characteristic of typhoid fever, 
will be followed by transient and tractable disorders. Sometimes typhoid fever 



9 

developes itself abruptly. In other cases it succeeds a long train ol threatening 
symptoms. The warnings of diptheria and inflammation of the lungs, disorders 
essentially different in their action, many times correspond to symptoms often 
followed by continued i^yvv. It is desirable then that the reader should be im- 
pressed with two important facts. The first is, that premonitory symptoms are 
not alwavs definino- — that is, thev do not invariably indicate what form of dis- 
ease will follow. The second is, that it is not necessary they should indicate 
any specific form of disease in order that the case may be treated safely, appro- 
priately and effectively. 

Science has never been able to dictate the treatment of disease which is ar- 
bitrary, or the effect of experiment. Strictly speaking, theory has but very 
little to do with practice in medicine. A theory may be good, and the prac- 
tice which it is supposed to indicate may be bad; and the theory may be very 
irrational and absurd, while the practice connected with it may be successful. 
Although the treatment of disease is arbitrary, or the result of experiment, 
nevertheless a long series of experiments pointing one way, enable us to establish 
a rule or principle which may serve as a guide in cases which have not hitherto 
come under our experience. Doubtless there is some theory, more or less ra- 
tional, behind all modes of treatment, which influences, to some extent, the 
practice of the physician, 

In our opinion, disease is the effect of exhaustion, local or general. When 
general and slow, we may have the formation of tubercle. When o-eneral and 
rapid, we may have some form of nervous fever. When rapid and local, we 
may have a pleurisy or partial paralysis. 

Pain or paralysis are among the first evidences of active disease. Intense 
pain is nearly equivalent to paralysis. It compels cessation of labor, or rest. 
The cause which produces exhaustion being removed by rest there is at once an 
effort on the part of the system toward recovery. Pain is sedative, and sedation 
abates pain. Pain relaxes — relaxation is antagonistic to pain ; thus pain tends 
legitimately to its own abatement. To aid its work hasten sedation and relaxa- 
tion. Pain comes upon a previously healthy tissue beeause of nervous exhaus- 
tion ; which may follow poison, violence, great physical effort, protracted toil, 
exposure to cold or from wasting pleasures and excesses. Pain is the voice of 
nature crying out against outrage, and demanding respite. A man makes ex- 
cessive demands upon his energies. He is attacked with pleurisy. Pain 
compels him to desist from labor, rest disposes to relaxation, and relaxation 
favors, as aforesaid, the subsidence of pain and inflammation. Appropriate 
medication and treatment expedites these processes, and when the powers of the 
system would otherwise, fail, suitable medical treatment naturally saves life. 
The first object of the healer then is to place the patient m circumstances favor- 
able to the recuperation of nervous force. In every possible way he should 
be prevented from the further waste of energy. If any medical treatment be 
of a nature to exhaust still more the vital powers, it is plain that it works in 
concert with the disease and helps hurry the patient to the grave. Stimulants 
and tonics in fevers and inflammations have the same effect as continued toil in 
the same condition. Rest enables the vital powers to recuperate their ibices, 
and proper medicines give the condition of rest. 

We have said in substance, that all fevers and inflammations require the 
same treatment. This would seem to favor the theory that disease is a unit, 
and appropriate treatment should always lessen the aggregate amount cf disor- 
der. It is very well known that successful physicians use fewer medicines for 
the treatment of acute disease the longer they practice, "I have employed 



10 

Dr. — in rny family for thirty years, 71 said an acquaintance, u and I have 

observed that he almost always gives the same medicine, no matter what the 
disease that he is called upon to treat ." This is the legitimate result of a con- 
scientious use of proper medical agents in acute diseases. The style of the 
aforesaid doctor would be very frequently imitated but for the necessity of 
blinding the patron by the exhibition of a large number of agents. Too 
much simplicity would excite suspicion, whether the physician understands his 
business . It is, however, very easy to prepare a medicine that shall have a 
favorable and effective action on almost all acute attacks. A preparation that, 
if given in proper doses, may be used indiscriminately for every description of 
acute disease ; and if the quantity be adjusted to the demands of the case, no 
one will be injured by its effects, while in ninety-nine cases in a hundred it will 
be followed by beneficial results. Materia Medica affords a multitude of agents 
that may be used thus generally for the abatement of acute disorder. They 
may properly be styled universal medicines. 

What are the principle characteristics of those agents for which we claim such 
a wide range of application ? They are emetic, Emeto Cathartic, Sedative, 
Diaphoretic, Diuretic and Alterative. Many single agents possess all these 
qualities in themselves. 

In the action of this class of agents there is manifest a grand fundamental 
principle underlying almost all treatment for acute disorder. This principle is 
Relaxation. The application of this is almost universal, ■ If any marked 
change is to be effected in the condition of the system, it must be relaxed . 
This fact is noticeable both in the encroachment and subsidence of disease. 
The system will not readily take.on disease if it be in a tonic, positive condition. 
In a relaxed state it is susceptable to either salutary or malignant influences. If 
disease already exists, the administration of tonics or astringents does not assist 
a transition from disease to health, but tends to fix disorder. In some instan- 
ces it may seem to invigorate, but the invigoration is only partial and does not 
remove disease. In disease the vital forces are out of balance. Relaxation of 
the system is necessary to the re-establishment of an equilibrium. In inflam- 
mation of the lungs a disturbing cause of the circulation of the blood is 
apparent. It meets with obstruction in its passage through those organs. It 
seems reasonable that tonics, stimulants and astringents should intensify this 
condition. Observation of the effects of such treatment will convince any one 
that it does do so. It is undoubtedly true that some patients do recover under 
this treatment, but this only goes to show that the inherent power of the system 
in some individuals is so strong as to be able to overcome great obstacles to 
recovery. I have. had extensive experience in the treatment of inflammation of 
the lungs, and have always found that appropriate relaxing agents give almost 
instant relief. I have found this disease more tractable than any other serious 
inflammation or fever. The reason of this is found in the fact that the lungs 
are composed of a thin spongy tissue through which the whole circulation of 
the blood passes. Consequently proper medicines that are absorbed and taken 
into the circulation, are remedial by beino' brought at once in contact with the 
seat of the disease. In the hands of a large class of physicians, inflammation 
of the lungs is a very dangerous and intractable disorder. Their treatment 
violates the principle of cure, and is more dangerous because the lungs an 
vital organs and are easily affected, both by medicines that remove disease and 
those that irritate and fix it. I have, myself, many times witnessed the fatal 
effects of iron and other tonics and astringents given by some practitioners in 
this disease. 



II 

Without attempting to explain the disturbing elements in a fever the fact is 
established, by thousands of tests, that the proper administration of suitable 
laxative agents, under favorable circumstances is followed by a mitigation of the 
svmptoms of the disorder. In the most obstinate forms of fever when the use 
of this class of agents is persisted in, the skin becomes moist and less hot, and 
the circulation slower and more normal. The countenance snows less anxiety, 
the patient is less restless, pain is abated, and if the patient had been delirious 
he becomes calm and rational. 

One of the most prompt and efficient modes of producing general relaxation 
is by the use of proper nauseating and emetic medicines. Nature herself, in 
her proc of renovation institutes this condition, which she frequently car- 

ries to complete emesis or vomiting. A very constant symptom of the ap- 
proach of acute disorder is the loss of appetite often followed by nausea and 
vomiting. The emetic condition of the system is antagonistic to every form of 
fever, inflammation and nervous derangement, and to every description of pain. 
The nauseant condition is purifying. The spontaneous vomitings that attend 
the early stages of pregnancy are natures mode of purifying the system, and 
serve to prepare it for the great task it has before it. I have many times dem- 
onstrated that 4 ' morning sickness " may be avoided by proper treatment ; which 
proves it to be a sanitary measure instituted by nature, Protracted nausea pro- 
motes a healthy action cf the whole glandular system. It will unlock the 
most torpid and inactive condition of the liver. 

In another place, under the caption Heat, we have shown the great relaxing 
power of that agent; the facility with which it may be applied; its wide range 
of usefulness ; its remarkable efficacy for the removal of pain ; and for the re- 
duction of almost every form of circumscribed congestion and inflammation. 
Through a practice of many years, I have made extensive use of this agent, 
and never, in a single instance, have I known any unfavorable result follow its 
application. 

It is my belief, based- upon an extensive use of medicines, and a careful obser- 
vation of their effects, that all of them which are not tonic, stimulant, or astrin- 
gent, have a relaxing influence upon some organ or organs of the human body. 
Experience shows that the best alterative properties, especially in acute disor- 
der, accompany medicines which are relaxing in their action, and which are 
most free fiom tonic, stimulating and astringent properties. We see the highly 
alterative power of simple relaxation in the application of heat. In a mental 
and moral sense, the benefit of relaxation is obvious to all classes of minds. It 
is said of men whose faculties have been long on the stretch in the pursuit of 
wealth or knowledge, or in the simple discharge of duty, that they need relaxa- 
tion. 

The simple principles of cure in acute disorder, set forth in these pages, are 
not given to the public as opinions, but as enduring truths that will admit of 
demonstration. The theory is simple, and the practice flowing from it, in the 
main, obvious and distinctly marked. The exceptions are few and not of a 
nature that are likely to confound the practitioner in regard to his duty. An 
oversight of these exceptions is simply an omission of the best method, and not 
a commission of a serious error. No harm is done to the patient. A depar- 
ture from the line of conduct indicated by these fundamental ideas, I have in- 
variably observed to be followed by bad results. Nevertheless I very well 
know that the practice of a large class of physicians is in direct opposition to 
these principles. It is well known that many persist in the use of alcoholic and 
narcotic stimulants, and other tonic and astringent treatment, during the most 



12 

intense febrile and inflammatory action. Nothing hi medicine is more demon- 
strable than that this treatment intensifies and protracts these conditions. 
Opium has a stimulating and stringent action upon the system, whether given 
in health or disease. The effects of its action are among the essential elements 
of fever. It increases arterial excitement. Even in health its administration 
puts the mental faculties in a delirious condition. These effects are much more 
pernicious when the system is already disordered. Can we hope to remove 
disease by adding fever to fever, delirium to delirium ? The power of opium 
to dull sensibility to pain, renders its primary effects agreeable. There are 
cases where its use is pardonable and commendable — but very few where it 
cannot be dispensed with. The preparations of opium disturb the stomach, 
constipate the bowels and clog and obstruct generally, and in their reaction are 
very trying to the patients' nerves. 

Iron, quinine, alcohol and other stimulants and tonics are made use of by a 
certain class of practitioners with similar unfortunate results. Their philosophy, 
in justification of this course, is that, in continued fevers characterized by great 
nervous depression, the patient must be sustained by stimulants. But the truth 
is, stimulants cause further nervous exhaustion, and thus increase and intensify 
the disorder which it is our endeavor to remove. What abates fever at once 
tends to the increase of nervous force. It does so because it tends to the re-es- 
tablishment of function. The imperious demand of nature in fevers, especially 
those of a nervous character, is rest, relaxation, quietude and freedom from 
every description of excitement. 

Genuine febrifuge agents tend directly to the abatement of the signs and 
symptons of inflammation. They diminish from the first arterial excitement. 
They calm perturbation. They dissipate that anxious expression of countenance 
which is one of the most universal signs of the presence of fever. They lessen 
pain by removing its cause, and so equalizing nervous force as entirely to con- 
trol delirium. 

The percentage of deaths from continued malignant fevers, under appropriate 
treatment, should be small. (In my practice they have not exceeded two per 
cent. ) These fevers attack chiefly the young and middle aged, when the sys- 
tem will bear great strain. The writer has known a patient with delirious con- 
tinued fever to recover after forty-two days of uninterrupted fever, and almost 
entirely without the aid of medicine- — so that with good nursing, and without 
medical treatment, the percentage of deaths would be small, much smaller than 
it is under the mercurial, narcotic, stimulating treatment of ' 'regular" j:>ractice. 

It is criminal, in the light of this day, for any practicing physician not to 
know that there are a great variety of medicines and simples, the direct action 
of which is to abate fever, quiet arterial excitement, increase nervous force, and 
thus, as it were, to compel the subsidence of delirium and the restoration of 
function. These words are not uttered incoherently and recklessly, but are the 
deliberate expression of one who has thousands of times seen the absolute power 
of medicine over fevers, and knows that they may be abridged by proper treat- 
ment. I have shown, or have endeavored to show, the applicability of princi- 
ples to fevers and acute inflammations. These two conditions comprehend the 
most numerous and dangerous expressions of acute disorder. There are few, 
if any, acute diseases which we know are neither of inflammatory or febrile ori- 
gin. There are some which do not present to our observation any febrile or 
inflammatory symptoms. But it cannot be shown that these are not the result 
of inflammatorv action. We do not know that neuralgia is not the result of in- 
flammation in a nerve or nerve*. We may reasonably presume that colic is 



IS 

of inflammatory origin, since it rapidly developed that condition to our observa- 
tion. We do not know through what agencies convulsions, fits, tetanus and 
other nervous and spasmodic diseases arc produced. We do know, however, 
that treatment which we have found so valuable in fevers and inflammations, is 
also appropriate and effective in all these disorders. Neuralgia, in acute cases, 
cannot be better treated than by such a course as will relax the whole system, 
and especially, if possible, the seat of the disease. The several kinds of 
colic which medical books describe, and all acute pain in the visceral region, are 
relieved by treatment instituted under these principles. And so reliable are 
they, that I seldom trouble myself to ascertain the exact name of the disorder, 
or its precise locality. 

There are some diseases of the bowels which, it seems probable, are not asso- 
ciated with fever or inflammation. These are attended with vomiting and purg- 
ing, such as cholera, cholera morbus and cholera infantum. These, however, 
do not constitute an exception to the rule. Experience has shown that these 
diseases are most successfully treated by warming and relaxing agents. 

Although these principles have a general application, and are easilv under- 
stood, still, a comprehension of the theory alone will not make one a skillful 
physician. A successful use of them requires experience in dealing with dis- 
ease, study and close observation. The principle of relaxation admits of many 
variations ; and these must be frequently brought into requisition at the bed- 
side. How far relaxation should be carried; how rapidly the process should be 
proceeded with; what particular agents are best adapted to the case in hand, are 
questions of art that can only be solved by trained judgment. In some cases 
the heat of the body should be brought down by relaxants possessing refriger- 
ant properties. In others it should be raised by those that impart warmth. In 
certain cases laxative cathartics are of great utility ; in others their use is inad- 
missable. A single case may present symptoms that require all these and 
other variations of treatment. And there may be twenty different expressions 
of disease, (different diseases,) which will all be subject to one simple applica- 
tion of this principle. 

The reader will perceive by what has been before stated that a knowledge of 
these principles obviates to a great extent the necessity of determining the pre- 
cise name of the disease. That nineteen times in twenty medicine may be 
given safely and profitably without knowing precisely what form of disorder is 
expressed by the particular signs and symptoms present ; and if this treatment 
be resorted to in the twentieth instance no harm will be done. ' ' Scientific 
medicine " endeavors to make the public believe that each expression of disease 
requires specific treatment, and it thrives by the popular acceptance of this 
doctrine ; because it discourages domestic treatment. It is owing to the prev- 
alence of these ideas that one doctor is spoken of as being good in scarlet fever. 
Another is thought to understand dealing w T ith acute rheumatism. A third is 
supposed to be exceptionally qualified for treating dysentery or inflammation of 
lungs, but a physician who is really reliable and trustworthy in one of these 
disorders ought to be so in all, for all present nearly the same conditions for 
treatment. If a man is successful in typhoid fever and not in other forms of 
fever and inflammations, it is evident that his success is hap-hazard. A man 
who bases his treatment of disease upon the doctrine of specifics is untrustwor- 

% Nothing is more common than for doctors to differ in diagnosis very 
widely. (We have narrated a case where college professors pronounced a case 
of disease of the liver to be consumption of the lungs.) They may give the 
wrong specific, and the result might be serious. Several such acknowledged 



u 

mistakes Lave occurred within a year past under my observation. No such un- 
lucky accidents will ever happen to a man who practices medicine uj:>on sound 
principles. 

Popular medicine is considered, even by its own patrons, as a kind of lotterv 
that is quite as likely to give them a blank as a prize. They expect that 
specifics will be hurled at their diseases, which may chance to cure, or may kill 
the patient, "Kill or Cure'' has passed into a proverb, and had its origin, no 
doubt, from the theory as well as the practice of 4i scientific" doctors. 
Many people believe that medicines that have power to cine are equally liable to 
injure or kill. Nothing can be more erroneous. But it is true that drugs that 
are capable of tainting the system have no healing virtues'. When the vital 
power is insufficient for the wants of the system under the most favorable cri- 
cumstances, then medicine, if it be of the right kind, will do no harm though 
it can be of no avail. If a man cannot walk after a friend has tried to help him 
to his feet, there is no reason why he should be 7 injured by the proffered nssist- 
ance. 



MEDICINES. 

The vegetable kingdom stands between man and the cruder elements of nr- 
ture. It is the grand laboratory where inorganic substances are manipulated, 
softened and refined by the delicate processes of organic life, and made suitable 
for man's sustenance. It is this department of nature, also, which furnishes 
the most appropriate and reliable agents for the cure of diseases, and for the 
preservation of his health. The infinitely varied mingling of the nutritious and 
the medicinal, in the vegetable world, is a most suggestive fact. The acrid 
escharotic action of organic medicines in their crude form, is often softened by 
mucilaginous and farinacious elements. Thus, there are many organic altera- 
tives that nourish the patient while thev combat disease. So perfect and beau- 
tiful is this blending of the medicinal iuid the nutritive, that one mav take an 
alterative with, his dinner, and the stomach will not revolt at the compound. 
Indeed, these elements are so spliced into one another, that we may have any 
desirable percentage of either. A dish of parsnips or of water cresses, in the 
spring, is a genial alterative. 

The power of "scientific" medicine, which has been derived from long years 
of governmental favor and immunity, has not sufficed wholly to destroy popular 
faith in simple vegetable remedies. It seems to be instinctive. The unhappy 
victims of scientific practice, who have been poisoned and crippled by mercurial 
drugs, turn with hope to the herb doctor for relief and cure. This natural bias 
is well understood bv those itinerant medical hucksters who advertise them- 
selves as Indian doctors. Certainly, it is a poor compliment to the light of our 
times, that we should look for medical treatment to the unlettered savage. 
That there should be a rational excuse for doing so, is an opprobrium to civili- 
zation. Plants and roots are friendly to the animal world. Brutes are liable 
to few diseases that instinct does not guide them to a remedy for, if they have 
access to woods and fields. Botanic medicines are worth as much more to 
man as reason is superior to instinct. By classifying and compounding them, 
he can reach almost every conceivable difficulty. But so conservative is nature 
— so loving to her children — that she favors very unintelligent uses of her pro- 
ducts. How many millions have been greatly benefitted — how few injured — by 



15 

the use of herb drinks and watery extracts of plants and roots; and of syrups 
made in blissful ignorance of the physiological action of the agents used ; whether 
they were tonics or emetics, cathartics or astringents, sedatives or stimulants, 
refrigerants or spices, being- matter of no study and of no concern. 

There is scarcely an important organ in the human body liable to disease that 
may not be acted on by some organic agent or compound. The heart, the liver, 
the pancreas, the spleen, the uterus, &o. • (fee, may be touched with medicine, 
as the pianist touches the keys of his instrument, and the response is as sure 
and definite. 

Health consists in a harmonious exhibition of function. To express the same 
in other words, a person is in health when all organs in the body are perform- 
ing their several duties with their normal force and vigor. In disease, there is 
abatement or cessation of function. Some of the organs are not doing their 
duty, or are doing it in part only. We hold that to be a legitimate medicine 
which restores and invigorates, or tends to restore and invigorate, function. 
Or, in other words, that is a proper medicine which restores or tends to restore 
harmony and equilibrium of action among all the organs of the body. The 
vegetable world furnishes a redundancy of plants possessing these medicinal 
virtues. A knowledge of only a few is requisite for the successful treatment of 
acute disorder. Almost every region produces abundance for the wants of its 
own inhabitants. 

Organic medicines when appropriately used increase the amount of electrici- 
ty and thus aid vital energy in its constant endeavors to expel disorder. They 
have peculiar power over the liver, kidneys, pancreas and the whole glandular 
system ; to arouse these organs from torpor and bring them to a healthy ex- 
hibition of their (unctions. They will not strain them by excessive stimulation ' 
or relaxation, as calomel and antimony do, nor will they remain in the system 
as those poisons do, causing aches and pains and thus perpetually prompting 
in the mind of the sufferer a curse for doctors They will not destroy the 
teeth and give a put] id odor to the breath ; but they remove nausea, moisten 
the mouth and throat when they are persistently dry and husky. They cor- 
rect the senses of taste and smell when disordered, sweeten an offensive breath, 
invigorate the blool, quicken the' mental perceptions and perfect the general 
health. 

It may be said with truth of organic medicines that they are natures reme- 
dies, and when properly used they attack and lessen disease, while chemical 
and mineral agents so freely and extensively employed being unfriendly in their 
essential nature to the human organism, attack the constitution itself, and bv 
impairing its powers, augment the amount of disorder in the body. 

A knowledge of the effects of medicine obviates, to a great extent, the neces- 
sity of a particular diagnosis. To one long accustomed to the use of healing 
agents, the manner of tbeir reception by the system in disease, becomes an in- 
dex as to the character and probable termination of the malady. When proper 
medical agents, fairly tried, fail to produce their characteristic effect 5 ', the hope- 
less nature of the disease may be inferred. Thus it is medicine becomes an 
instructor and communicates knowledge that could not otherwise be obtained. 
These facts beautifully illustrate the value of medicines and thfc limitation of 
their functions, namely: — that they are aids to vital force and facilitate its ex- 
pression, but never supply its place. But inappropriate and non-medical agents 
blind us every way in regard to disease. Calomel, antimony, iron, arsenic, 
iodine and their compounds have no adjusting control over function. 

Medicines which seem to have direct effect in the removal of disorders have 



16 

been called specifics. This term is inappropriate, and does not fully describe 
their virtues They have a general action corresponding to their local effects. A 
medicine that has power over inflammation of the lungs, dees also remove in- 
flammation generally. Those medicines which have the effect to reduce inflam- 
mation generally, do also overcome inflammations of a strictly local character. 
Only a limited number of organs in the human body can be acted upon directly 
through the internal administration of medicine There are no medicines 
which have peculiar power over inflammation in the eye, but an inflammation 
in this organ may be reduced with as much certainty as an inflammation in the 
urethra, and by the same class of agents. We have heard of specifics for 
scarlet fever and diptheria, but this is a gross misuse of the term. Scarlet 
fever and diptheria, like measles, small-pox and erysipelas typhoid fever, &e. , 
&c. , are constitutional diseases, they are all fevers and are all controlled and 
reduced by similar treatment. 

Organic medicines can be used in combination and not have the action of 
one interfere with that of another. Each element in a compound produces its 
legitimate effect. Even those which seem to be opposite in their nature do not 
neutralize each other, but each exerts its own influence. Medicines of great 
value have within themselves apparently opposite properties, and their compound 
action, in some instances is highly beneficial. Rheubarb is cathartic and tonic . 
If that agent is not at hand its equivalent can be formed of two other agents, 
one of which is tonic and the other cathartic. The apparently contradictory 
properties of certain medicines make them especially valuable for parti cular 
uses. Here is a medicine which is emetic and tonic, two opposite properties . 
It is also diaphoretic and diuretic. It possesses all these qualities in a high de- 
gree. It is of great value in certain expressions of disease. But it cannot be 
given alone with safety, even in medicinal doses, to persons affected with disease 
of the heart. But, by combining it with an arterial sedative, we can qualify to 
any desired extent its excessive tonic action; and, at the same time, avail our- 
selves of its other valuable properties. In fevers we want sedation. Some 
sedatives reduce heat; others warm the patient. It will be perceived, therefore, 
that by combining and alternating medicines, we can preserve any desirable 
temperature. 

Medicine is both preventive and curative. -The developement of most dis- 
eases may be arrested at indefinite stages of their progress. This is prevention 
as well as cure. In arrestiug disease, we prevent the consequences of its unop- 
posed developement. For this reason, it is justifiable to anticipate active disease 
and premedicate for its prevention. It is true man) people have a dread of this 
use of medicine, and think it should be employed only after acute disease has 
been established, This suspicion of medicine, and aversion to premedication, is 
owing to the terrible effects of poisons so extensively substituted for medicines. 
It is a popular protest against what is significantly called apothecary medicine. 
But, in truth, no medicine pays so well as that which forestalls disease and en- 
ables the patient to evade an acute attack. In many cases malignant fevers 
may be averted, or favorably modified, before 'these disorders culminate. This 
is emphatically true of all diseases that have their origin in an impure state of 
the blood, and their name is legion. Of some of these we may predict with 
certainty, that they will result in the death of the patient, unless arrested by 
proper medication , In diseases of a scrofulous or cancerous nature, or those 
having a putrid tendency, the system must reach a certain degenerated condi- 
tion before they express themselves locally. When taken in season, these may 
always be kept in abeyance by anticipatory treatment. 



17 

As a remarkable example illustrating the preventive power of medicine, we 
report the ease of Miss Jane Matteson, of Guy's Mills, Crawford Co., Pa. 
Miss M. was treated in the spring and summer of I860. Miss M. had four or 
five hard, rapidly growing tumors in each breast, accompanied with severe 
lancinating pain. When she came to me for treatment, these tumors gave every 
indication of being schirrous cancerous growths. Her health and strength 
were enfeebled. Under these circumstances we commenced medication. With- 
in two weeks thereafter, the growth of these tumors was arrested and the pain 
entirely conquered. Her health and vigor have returned. Over three years 
have elapsed since she commenced taking medicine. Her health is good, and 
the tumors remain without growth or pain. 

It has been our experience, many times, to be called to treat some one mem- 
he r of a household of six or eight individuals, fordiptheria or scarlatina maligna. 
Apprehending that the disease w T ould attack other members of the family, it 
has been our custom to anticipate it by such treatment as would, in our judg- 
ment, prepare the person for the attack, or wholly ward it off. In such cases, 
when the disease has extended to other members of the family, it has, without 
exception, been of a milder and more tractable character. We have not lost a 
patient of this class, though we have had the care of many such. There is al- 
ways a predisposition before intense local expression. "Nothing is more appro- 
priate than premedication in anticipation of malignant disorder. 

The healing power of medicine always manifests itself, when appropriately 
used, in the suppression of active disease, if the vital force is sufficient to sup- 
port its action. Disease never stands still. It advances with more or less 
rapidity toward its climax, unless it receives some check which assists the system 
to throw it off. Some expressions of disease have a tendency to recovery — 
others to death. But the course of either may be modified or entirely changed 
by proper medicine. The eruptive fevers, such as small-pox, measles, &c, , 
all have a tendency to recovery after they have run their course, and have reach- 
ed a climax. But the system may be so influenced by medicine that their 
usual course may be very much shortened and favorably altered. If scarlet 
fever receives appropriate treatment in an early stage, it may never reach com- 
plete maturity. In many instances thorough and appropriate medication will 
utterly route the disorder in twenty- four hours. I have treated small-pox when 
the disease was essentially conquered before the eruption appeared. 

A swelling, threatening abscess may be aborted, and its culmination prevent- 
ed by constitutional treatment, by medication which changes the inflammatory 
character of the blood. I have never had a case of broken breast follow my 
treatment of a lying-in patient. I have been frequently warned that certain 
women whom I w T as expected to attend during confinement w T ould have broken 
breasts, because on such occasions they had suffered that way before. One of 

the most remarkable cases of this nature w r asthatof Mrs. of Meadville, 

the mother of four children. At the birth of each child she had been confined 
to the bed for several months from the effects of abscesses in the right breast. 
One of these had been lanced so often that the connection of the milk ducts 
was completely broken, so that no milk could be drawn from the breast. This 
woman I attended during her last confinement. Both breasts filled with milk ; 
one could be drawn bv the child. From the other no milk could be extracted. 
As might be expected, the breast gave signs of inflammation, attended by con- 
stitutional fever. In this case medicine perfectly controlled both fever and in- 
flammation until milk ceased to be secreted in the unsound breast. From this 
period medication was stopped , and the woman had no further trouble. It 



18 

would be difficult to imagine any case that would more fully demonstrate that 
abscess may be prevented by medicine. 

There are certain depraved conditions of the system which express them- 
selves by general debility, by absence of energy, by swellings and abscesses, 
about the neck especially, chronic inflammation of the eyes or in fixed inflam- 
mation of the joints, commonly called white swellings — hip disease, spinal 
affections, and that disposition of the system which accompanies the formation 
of tubercle. These various expressions of disease are included in the general 
term, scrofula, or king's evil. This affection affords an admirable illustration of 
that practice which relies upon the use of organic remedies. There is scarcely 
any expression of this many faced disorder that is not amenable to a judicious 
use of remedies prepared from roots and herbs. I have seen rickets in its most 
active stage effectually cured by a single prescription composed of organic ex- 
tracts. Active hydrocephalus, or dropsy of the brain has been cured by a 
short course of medication. Our own practice would furnish a long and varied 
list of examples o! cures wrought upon some form of this affection. I have 
also seen the corroborative testimony of others who were experienced in the use 
of botanic medicines. The history of medicine will not furnish a single exam- 
ple of any form of this affection which has been cured by mineral agents. But 
their use makes diseases which are counterparts of many of its expressions. 



HEAT. 

Is one of the most life giving and life sustaining agents in nature. As a 
healing principle it is of inestimable importance in the treatment of both acute 
and chronic disease. 

The application of heat to local inflammation, to engorgements, congestions, 
to any part of the body afflicted with cramp or spasm, to persons suffering 
from sudden affections of the bowels, to any part affected with pain it can 
scarcely fail to give some relief, and in any acute or sudden attack no one need 
fear that any injury will follow the application of this agent. 

A large towel or bed sheet dipped in boiling water, wrung, and applied to 
to the head and face for neuralgia, or to any part affected with pain, as hot as 
the sufferer can possibly bear it, and frequently repeated, will, nineteen times 
in twenty, speedily abate inflammation and lessen pain. These applications 
should be on a liberal scale. The cloth used should be large in order to hold a 
great amount of heat, and the whole head or part affected should be thoroughly 
enveloped. The wet cloth may be covered by dry flannels, in order to prevent 
the escape of heat, they may be repeated as often as the nurse feels disposed to 
do it. 

Toothache may frequently be relieved by putting the feet in hot water and 
using hot applications about the head and face. Pleuritic pains, or pains in the 
chest, and colic pains or pains about the stomach and bowels, even when ob- 
stinate, are relieved by persistence in the use of heat applied to the parts af- 
fected. Pine and other soft wood blocks an inch thick and fear or five inches 
square, boiled for an hour and a half in water and placed over the seat of pain, 
inflammation or congestion will generally be found efficacious. At all events 
they are good aids to other treatment. Bottles filled with hot water, heated 
bricks or bags of sand may be used for the same purpose. Bear in mind the 
object is .the reduction of pain and inflammation by the u *e of heat. Your 
ow r n invention may perhaps contrive better modes for the use of this agent. 



ig 

Urine retained in the bladder by spasmodic stricture of the urethra, by en- 
largement of the prostrate gland, or by other causes to you unknown, will 
usually beset free by the use of cloths wrung from hot water and placed over 
the bladder, and they may also envelope the whole of the genital organs. 
Roasted onions applied hot may be still more efficacious, because more relaxing. 

Heat to the feet will relieve pressure upon the brain. Heat to the surface of 
the body aids the action of the capillaries and thus equalizes and facilitates the 
circulation of the blood. In all these applications care should be had to keep 
the sufferer well covered . In all cases after the removal of hot cloths, the 
clothes, of the sick person should not be left wet in contact with the body. Hot 
drinks, such as alspice, ginger, peppermint and other warming teas are effec- 
tive to allay pain in the stomach and bowels. They are equally useful also after 
chills and other effects of exposure to cold. Injections of warm water into the 
bowels a little above blood heat are of great* utility in obstinate attacks of colic. 
These injections may be repeated indefinitely or until they relieve. No evil 
effects need be apprehended from this treatment, even if the patient has inflam- 
mation of the bowels or of the peritoneum. Injections into the rectum for 
dysentery is also safe and appropriate treatment. There is no form of inflam- 
mation in which the application of heat is not beneficial. 

To act reflectively and perse veringly on these few hints on the application of 
heat, will many times save the necessity of calling a doctor, even when not 
another medical agent is at command. 

Heat is a relaxing agent, and is one of the many that are of universal appli- 
cation in acute diseases. In no instance have I known any injury to follow 
its use. 



DISEASES OF WOMEN. 

A great many books have been printed, within a few years, treating exclu- 
sively of diseases peculiar to women. Perhaps these books give additional im- 
portance to the medical profession, but it is more than doubtful if they have, in 
any wise, strengthened medical art. Beyond question, the practice they have 
originated has been detrimental to the health of the female part of community. 
i 'Scientific" medicine has endeavored to make a special study of these diseases. 
But its labors have served to give the subject a' fictitious importance, and to 
open new sources of wealth and power to the profession. The medication con- 
nected with the practice is composed chiefly of fanciful chemical preparations, 
destitute of medical virtues, that diminish the nervous force of the patient, and 
thus disarm nature of her recuperative energy. New instruments are invented 
— new appliances are put in requisition — that result in no benefit to the patient. 
Where there is the remotest chance of a radical cure for felling of the womb, 
the use of pessaries, and other mechanical supporters, only serve the purpose of 
augmenting the business of professional doctors at the cost of the health and 
money of their patients. 

Local treatment for uterine difficulties is carried to a shameful extent by a 
class of practitioners. Local treatment for ulcers on the neck of the womb is 
not only a useless but a vicious practice. They cannot be cured by local treat- 
ment; and, if they could, it would be an injury to the patient to do so. Ulcers 
on the neck of the womb result from inflammation of the womb itself, and their 
formation is nature's process for the reduction of the inflammation. To heal 



these ulcers by the application of caustics, or other external treatment, does not 
remove the inflammation which caused them ; but it does lock up and fix it. 
If, however, we reduce the inflammation in the body of the womb, the ulcers 
on the neck will heal without other treatment. There are cases of uterine diffi- 
culties where it is justifiable to make a physical examination to determine the 
character of the disease. These cases afford a pretext for a great many abuses 
in practice which merit a careful consideration by thinking people. The effects 
of the labors of ' 'scientific" doctors, in this branch of the medical art, is piti- 
ful. The invalid is amused but not cured ; and passes from doctor to doctor 
without help, until what was once only trifling weakness has become fixed dis- 
ease. Thus the medical profession thrives, and thus disease prevails in the 
land. 

Owing to sexual structure, disease expresses itself differently in the two sexes. 
But there is nothing exceptional in the nature of disease. It is essentially the 
same in man as in woman ; and treatment should be conducted on the same 
principles. What reduces an inflammation in one will be equally efficacious 
in the other. v 



SECTARIAN MEDICINE. 



TRICKS OF THE TRADE. 



e 



In primitive states of society, medicine and theology were blended. Th 
priest and the physician were one and the same person. Medicine, like theolo- 
gy, had its temples, its priests, and its mystic rites. For a long time among 
the Romans, as well as in the early history of other great nations, medicine 
had no distinct status, but remained in the hands of the priests, and consisted 
mainly, in superstitions rites and ceremonies, and in barbarous and cruel modes 
of treatment. We have no account, however, even in that crude state of medi- 
cal art, of any agents then in use so destructive to human tissues, or so hideous 
in their physiological effects, as certain mineral drugs and compounds exten- 
sively used in the strong light of our day. No savage tribes of this day present 
such deplorable effects of vicious medication as characterize the work of our 
scientific doctors. The tricks of modern jugglers are professedly deceptions ; 
but those by which doctors rob us of our money, health and life, are gravely 
perpetrated in the sacred name of science. ' 

The earliest medical practitioners in this country were the clergy. The 
medicine man of the North American Indians is also the prophet and priest of 
his tribe. There has always been an effort on the part of medical practitioners, 
to keep medicine an occult or secret art. So w r e find that, among various peo- 
ple, and at different periods, it has been mixed with astrology, necromancy and 
other secret arts and practices. 

The practice of medical art has seldom been sustained on its own merits — 
that is, by the simple, direct and undisguised skill of the physician. There is 
usually some appeal to the love of the marvelous, or some excitation of the 
superstitious biases of the invalid. He is made to believe that the doctor is an 
embodiment of learning and science ; or, that he has some abridged method of 
cure — some mysterious control over disease, not bound by the immutable laws 
of cause and effect. In some instances, the whole art of the practitioner is 
summed up in the use, or the attempted use of psychological power over the 
patient. An example of this kind is shown in those who attempt to cure by 
the use of charms ; by the pronouncing of certain mysterious and, to the patient, 
incomprehensible phrases ; and by the laying on of hands. The rubbing and 
friction doctors, by the stimulating power of nervous force, do put in requisition 
an agent of positive healing virtue. In certain classes of difficulties, the effect 
has a degree of permanency. But, in this practice, as in those examples just 
named, it is chiefly the novelty and mystery of the art upon which the operator 
relies for business. When these cease to operate, the^rick is played out. 

There is a small number of practitioners who style themselves Uroscopists. 



22 

They claim W be able to describe disease, and to treat it successfully, by exam- 
ing the urine of the patient, without seeing him. A sample of this is carried 
to the doctor in a vial, who sometimes goes through the form of examining it 
with a microscope, and testing it in a tube with heat and chemicals. More 
commonly, however, he takes the vial in hand, and putting on an air of wis- 
dom, looks at it intently, conversicg, meanwhile, with the messenger. The 
prescription is then put up and delivered to the agent. 

These physicians rely mostly upon botanical agents, and it is but justice to 
admit that they are far more successful in the treatment of either acute or 
chronic disease than the self-styled regulars ; as any physician must be who uses 
organic remedies with only indifferent skill. Their practice is not so objection- 
able as their pretension to arts they' do not possess. The Uroscopist sees no 
more in the urine than any other doctor, and it is not from knowledge obtained 
from this source that he is enabled to judge of the patients disease, or what 
medication it calls for. If he knew definitely the constituents of the urine, its 
elements, and the precise quantitiy of each element, it would still afford him 
slight knowledge of the patients disease, and no clue whatever to treatment. 
That they often help their patients without seeing them, there is no rational 
doubt. A little knowledge in regard to the condition of the patient can always 
be drawn from the messenger, without asking a question that shall appear to 
him as having any bearing on the case. If the doctor can only ascertain 
whether the disorder is acute or chronic, which, in ninety-nine cases in a hun- 
dred he can easily do, he can treat him safely, and in a majority of instances, 
successfully , This goes to prove what we have said elsewhere, that pro- 
fessional medicine is in large part artificial . The pretended study of the urine 
is a blind. The patients attention must be diverted from the simple philosophy 
of cure, and fixed upon some imaginary art or science of great profundity. 

An examination of the pulse was once considered sufficient for the discovery 
and treatment of all diseases that flesh is heir to. It is still of more value in 
determining the condition of the patient than any other one sign we have. But 
it would be useless for any man in these days to pretend to base a practice up- 
on an examination of the pulse alone. A knowledge of its value is so wide 
spread and so demonstrable that but few people could be humbugged by any 
extraordinary pretensions to science in that direction. The urine is sometimes 
an aid in the study of disease, but it is ridiculous to suppose that a man can 
learn more from a bottle of urine alone than he can by systematic methods of 
inquiry and physical examination. 

The Clairvoyant would have his victims believe that he can see better through 

the top of his head than through the natural organs of vision. Mrs . A 

says a clairvoyant whom she employed described her disease ' ' exactly in every 
particular." "And did you yourself know your disease, when you called him 
in counsel?" '-No, of course not," she replied, "or I should not have sent 
for him." " Well, if you did not know what your disease was, and your coun- 
sel has described parts that cannot be examined by aid of any or all the organs 
of sense, how do you know that he told you the truth." Of course there 
could be no satisfactory answer to the question. It is easy to make statements 
in regard to organs in the interior of the body, for what is affirmed cannot be 
disproved. It is characteristic of many modes of practice, to tempt the con- 
fidence of the patient for the purpose of securing patronage by endeavoring to 
show a knowledge of his disease, but as we have elsewhere said, "a knowledge of 
disease is only one branch of medical art, and does not imply ability to cure. 

The artful medium iftes departed spirits to unfold the marvels of disease 



23 

arid cure. Many of the mediums are young, and confessedly not experienced 
in medical matters; but they affect to be acted on by higher and more intelli- 
gent powers. No doubt many of the patrons of uroscopy, would consider these 

latter as humbugs. But the trick lias the same signifieancy in all. It is a 
mode of creating pi estige — a means of securing confidence, and is essentially 
the same as that which gives importance to all sects. 

Homeopathy is the shadow of Allopathy. Its birth was aided by a know- 
ledge of the disease-making effects of their drugs. No man ignorant of alio- 
pathy would ever have originated homeopathy. The principal trick of this 
sect, unlike the examples just given, does not consist in the pretense of a mar- 
velous manner of detecting disease, but in the principle upon which they admin- 
ister medicine and discover the remedies of disease. It has, however, other 
tricks by which it bids for patronage. Among the most prominent are, its 
claims to be scientific — its doctrine of specifics, with its multitude of agents, 
and its strictly exclusive character. This doctrine of specifics, that is, that 
certain medicines have exclusive or exceptional power over particular expressions 
of disease, is erroneous. There are no specifics in medicine, no medicines that 
have exclusive power over any particular expression of disease. A proper use 
of the same agents are effective with all forms of fever, and all local inflamma- 
tions. Pleurisy root abates pain arising from inflammation of the pleural mem- 
brane; but it has no specific or exceptional action in this disease. It abates 
pain arising from fever or inflammation in any part of the body. Besides, 
there may be a hundred medicines besides pleurisy root that conquers pleurisy, 
and acts in the direction of cure over all inflammations and fevers. Colchicum 
has some power "over acute rheumatism and gout, but it has the same power 
over other inflammations and fevers as far as its use is called for, On the other 
hand there are many other agents which have far more power over gout and 
rheumatism than colchicum. Some medicines act with greater energy on cer- 
tain organs than on others, but their beneficial effects on the system are by no 
means bounded by their local action. They reduce inflammation located in 
other parts of the body, as effectively as those which express themselves mainly 
in those organs which seem more especially acted on by the medicine. For in- 
stance some medicines act with exceptional energy on the kidneys, but the 
same power these agents exert o^r inflammation in these organs, they 
would manifest over inflammations in other organs. By their action on the 
kidneys, they energize their functions, and cause certain excretory changes in 
the blood. The blood so changed, exerts a healing influence over all affected 
parts of the body. 

Homeopathy may properly be called a fancy fraud of scientific medicine, and, 
next to Allopathy, is the best planned and most thoroughly ramified system of 
humbuggery that is any where trampling upon and smothering the simple heal- 
ing arts. No doubt Hahnemann was disgusted with the systematic disease 
making of Allopathy. He tells us that the disorders made by its drugs are the 
most obstinate o f all chronic affections. But, singularly enough, the chief poi- 
sons of these disease makers are Homeopathic specifics. Like many Allopaths 
of his day, most likely Hahnemann was a medical skeptic; and, in breaking 
away from the old school, may have said to himself: "I will beat a hole in the 
noisy drum of these disease makers. I have no more faith in medicine than 
they have, but my conscience will not let me make so much disease: I will 
bring a rational philosophy to the aid of my ghost of medication ; I will tickle 
the imagination of the lovers of the marvelous by my extreme dilutions. My 
sugar-coated pills will be a pleasing contrast to the disgusting doses of the Alio- 



24 

paths, and I shall win." Homeopathy is winning. In many large cities it is 
driving Allopathy to the wall. Henre the hostility of the latter to Homeopathy 
exhibits the very essence of malignity. 

In every city there is a percentage of people who want to be doctored. 
They don't expect to be cured, for the reason that they have no positive ail- 
ments except ennui. They don't want to be out of fashion; and it is fashion- 
able to receive the visits of a physician. Besides, they must he amused ; but 
they don't want to be poisoned — that is, bat little; and they want that" little 
concealed in sugar pills . Little pills that will not rack the nerves of those that 
swalbw them. Homeopathy is admirably adapted to answer this demand. 
As a fancy humbug it is superior to Allopathy, and better adapted to the wants 
of our civilization. No sect can become popular that does not practice some 
form of imposition. Practically -the Homeopathy of Hahnemann institution is 
defunct. Extreme dilution is repudiated whenever the case in hand calls for 
vigorous treatment. In fact we have seen the Homeopathist advertise his 
medicine as concentrated, in comparison with the weaker and watery prepara- 
tions of other physicians . 

It is to the interest of all medical sects, that the people shall believe that the 
medical art is beyond their comprehension — at least without years of prepara- 
tory study. It is true that their aits are hard to understand. They are art- 
fully made so. Physicians complicate disease, and complicate treatment. But 
genuine medical art is very simple. If a man has fever, and you know how to 
abate that fever, you know considerable medical art. And this you may easily 
learn to do, though you cannot write your name or read the alphabet. 

The public mind must be confoundtd by involved and contradictory theories, 
and absurd practice. To make their teaching consistent, plain and truthful, 
would be self-destruction. It would be no less than to tell every one how to 
do without their services. To fully develope and empower an orthodox sect, 
the public must be overwhelmed with awe by the psychological power of learn- 
ing. To this ead the students brain is filled with technicalities and useless 
jargon. Great importance is attached to qualifications and attainments entirely 
irrelevant to healing arts. A medical phraseology is invented for effect — utterly 
without utility, except to excite wonder for learning as useless as it is inco npre- 
hensible. 

For illustration, let us show how the wo d Neuralgia has served the profes- 
sion in this direction. A man is severely distressed in the region of the stomach. 
He says to his physician, after describing his case: "What is the matter with 
me?" "0," says the doctor, "you have neuralgia of the stomach.'' The 
patient is now satisfied that the doctor profoundly understands his case, and re- 
ceives treatment with confidence. If the doctor, in answer to his patient's 
interrogation, had said, "you have pain the stomach, 7 ' the patient would very 
likely have replied, "I know that as well as you do." But, practically, the 
doctor told him no more when he called it neuralgia. Neuralgia reveals no 
more to the doctor than the word pain does to the patient. There can be no 
pain without disorder in some one or more of the nerves of sensation. It is 
true that when the word neurabia was first introduced into medical literature, 
it signified pain in a nerve independent of other organs or disease. But the 
definition was soon found not to be strictly correct. It is scarcely possible for 
a nerve of sensation to be affected independent of other organs. This disorder 
is corrected by treating it through the medium of other organs. Literally 
neuralgia is pain in a nerve. But all pain is pain in a nerve or nerves. The 
nerves only can make one conscious of pain. But pain is a very common sen 



25 

sation. It is so common as to be esteemed vulgar by the "regulars." To tell 

a man he has pain, is to toll him nothing now. So a scientific doctor calls it 
neuralgia. Neuralgia is science, and nobody is supposed to comprehend it but 
a doctor. 

The institution of the family physician is an outgrowth of a disguised and 
artificial profession. It is, in fact, a relict of the dark ages, when the priest and 
the physician were one and the same person, and did the thinking, theologi- 
cally and medically, for all classes; when to differ with the opinion of the doctor 
in regard to health and the proper treatment of disease, would have been deem- 
ed as presumptuous as to differ with the priest about matters pertaining to the 
soul. The institution is not in accordance with the spirit of our times, and is a 
bar to the diffusion of medical knowledge among the people. It is the interest 
of the family physician to discourage the introduction of knowledge which 
would better enable his patients to dispense with his services. When a family 
has found a physician whose^skill, integrity, and prompt attention to business, 
commend him to their "patronage, it is proper that such family should employ 
him when they need his services, for what he is best qualified fcr do. But 
what is there in medical art that should exempt the physician more than men in 
other vocations from the laws of competition? Nothing. Only an outline 
knowledge of the principles of medical art would make this fact apparent. 
Most people confine their patronage to one physician because of their acknow- 
ledged inability to judge of the value of medical service. Long acquaintance 
with one man is the best guarantee they have for good service. They think 
they know him. But it is an essential qualification of a "scientific" doctor not 
to be known. He wears perpetually a professional mask, as impenetrable as that of 
the veiled prophet [ of Khorassen, to the unmedical patron. This mask is an in- 
tegral part of his professional qualification. It is studied and taught systemati- 
cally. The Clarion County Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania, in 
its cole of ethics published in 1867, says: "A peculiar reserve must be main- 
tained by physicians in regard to professional matters. " That reserve is intend- 
ed, no doubt, to conceal from those whom this society, in high church style, 
call ' laymen," professional ignorance, and that laugh in the sleeve which must 
so often reveal itself to the members of the society. ' 'My son, " said a consid- 
erate father to a child whom Providence had somewhat stinted in mental en- 
dowments, "if you go with me to town you must not talk, and people will not 
know you are ja fool." The sharp business tact of the American people is Jess 
conspicuous in their dealings with the doctor than in any other department of 
human affairs. One would suppose that life and health were of sufficient 
value to stimulate cautiousness and conservatism to the last degree. But it is 
astonishing how easily men and women, in all conditions of life, can be imposed 
on in medical matters, when they are approached with the artificial authority of 
scientific medicine. 

The "regular" doctor is generally opposed to ordinary modes of advertising. 
He is so for these reasons : — If a regular, combined and associated physician can 
impress^the public with the idea that the representatives of his schooronly r 'are 
properly qualified physicians, they have no occasion to advertize in any other 
way, nor to strive for success as healers . They are sure to do all the chance 
business and as much more as they can make by the use of their drugs. They 
understand very well that, if they advertised their cure?, they would be esti- 
mated and measured by their success in healing. "Don't talk 'about cures," 
said a "regular" college professor to his class, "but base your claim to patron- 
age on the fact that you are a regular physician." "The people," said he, 



26 * 

u won't reason on these matters. They can't. Yon must command them by 
authority — that always control's the unreflecting; and then it little matters what 
your work is, it will be considered right." No! the regular physician does not 
advertise directly ; and considering the deadly effect of his drugs, and the terri- 
ble character of his work, it is a great misfortune to the public that he does 
not. 

But if the "regular" does not advertise, as aforesaid, he has, nevertheless, a 
very effectual mode of blowing his own trumpet. Affecting to contemn the 
judgement of the public as incompetent to judge of the character of his work, 
he looks to the profession for his honors. The very assumption that the calomel 
schools only graduate regular bred physicians, is a mode of advertising. Their 
affectation of mystery, and their endlessly tautological phraseology, based upon 
the most inconsequential learning, is still another mode of advertising. 

Another mode in which " scientific" popular medicine uses its artificial pres- 
tige and powder to sustain itself at the expense of independent thought and 
action, and to appear wise in the public eye, is to apply some epithet of re- 
proach to stigmatize all who shall attempt to practice medicine without its seal 
and authority. This epithet is quack. With your scientific doctor, every kind 
of medical practice is quackery except his own. If the best representatives of 
scientific medicine should get progressive ideas, denounce the authority of their 
school, and set up as independent practitioners, the immaculate fraternity of 
regulars would call them quacks, as they do all who defect from their ranks. 
But these men would know just as much outside of the calomel school as in it. So 
reader, you see that quackery does not signify want of qualification, but want 
of a particular kind of authority,, in other words the quack is a medical heretic 
who presumes to do some of his own thinking. Now, let us suppose a young 
parchmented li regular " fresh from the schools, commencing practice under the 
auspices of the fraternity. His mouth is full of technical phraseology and the 
jargon of scientific medicine, yet he may lack all the instincts and philosophy 
of nature's physician. He ma}^ be utterly incapable of comprehending the 
higher principles of the profession. He may poison his patients with calomel, 
corrosive sublimate, antimony, &c. , &c. He may mark his ride everywhere 
with wrecked systems, the legitimate effects of his accursed drugs. He may fill 
his pockets with gold, and give his patients in return shattered constitutions and 
depraved appetites. This man has a diploma, and in the language of the 
schools, is a " properly qualified physician. r Those who strain their lungs 
in crying quack, would never apply the epithet to such a case as this. 80 read- 
er, when you hear one denounced as a quack, reflect a moment — consider who 
uses the word — what is its signification, and you will not be disturbed by it, 
quack ! quackery ! ! Why, that quackery must to be deprecated — most abun- 
dant, is licensed quackery — authorized quackery — popular quackery — quackery 
that maims, disables and destroys, all in the name of science. 

This is the spirit of regular organized popular medicine. To make disease, 
and therefore business for itself. To compel public patronage by combinations. 
To crush out independent practitioners by refusing to counsel with them, and to 
stifle all criticisms and independent thought in its patrons. " Any man" says 
the great Harvey, ' ' who presumes to dispute their doctrines, or to practice in 
oppositions to the prescriptions based upon them, is denounced as a quack and 
a murderer, and visited with a malicious persecution that stops at nothing short 
of destruction, root and branch ." 

The prestige and power of the calomel schools depend chiefly upon artificial 
aids. If ope could take from regular organized medicine that " peculiar reserve " 



21 



which its representatives are instructed to maintain towards those whom tliey 
call laymen — if one could take from it its "fuss and feathers," its affected dig- 
nity, iu inflated phraseology $ its persistent time-honored humbuggery, and its 
disease-making drugs, the effect would be like taking gas from a balloon, the 
institution would collapse. Where five doctors now get rich, one would scarce- 
ly get an economical living. 



SECTARIAN MEDICAL LITERATURE. 

A celebrated French surgeon, who had the benefit of forty years' experience 
in the armies and hospitals of France, said that if all the medical literature then 
extant were to be swept away, nothing would he lost that was worth preserving. 
Whatever may have inspired such an opinion in his day, it is quite evident that 
the floods of medical trash with which we are inundated, in our times, would 
much better justify such judgment. These books show conclusively that it is 
very difficult to convey to the minds of others distinct ideas of those things 
which the writers do not understand themselves. It is probable that most 
medical books are intended by their authors as nothing moie than professional 
advertisements. Others are written for the purpose of introducing new r hum- 
bugs as the old ones begin to play out. It is notorious that none of them have 
communicated to the public knowledge of practical utility in regard to the treat- 
ment of disease. The most careful analytical revision of all the medical litera- 
ture extant, of every sect and school, would not furnish one healing principle 
that would be accepted as such by all classes of physicians. No agreement be- 
tween physicians, even of the same school, consulted separately, can be counted 
on in their treatment of the most common expression of dangerous acute disease. 
Why is this ? Is there, nothing tangible and permanent in medicine ? Un- 
doubtedly there are principles in medicine as permanent as natural organic law r . 
But it is to the interest of all medical sects that no such uniform principles of 
medical practice shall be established. Most medical books are written by the 
representatives of some school or sect, and who are, consequently, interested in 
disseminating exclusive theories. There can be no exclusiveness where every 
practitioner is governed by the same principles. Beside, the treatment of acute 
disease is of such a nature that, if uniform principles of the right character were 
adopted by physicians, they would soon become the property of the public, and 
few professional doctors could be maintained. Thus, it is plain, that all sects 
are interested in confounding the common understanding in regard to the most 
fitting modes of medical treatment. Whatever common experience approves, 
the dictum of the schools condemns. That, therefore, is a good professional 
book which, while it seems to mean something, conveys no knowledge of prac- 
tical utility to the reader. These books that claim to be scientific works, and 
this pretension to science as an indispensable requisite to medical practice, is the 
w r ool that obscures the mental vision of so many thousands of people, and makes 
them willing to be poisoned, crippled and maimed. 

It is amusing to hear medical dogberrys discourse of the learning of physi- 
cians. They say that "Dr. A. is very scientific." "Dr. B. is one of the best 
read men in the country. " Why, if a man were to read to any considerable 
extent the medical literature of the day, under the impression tnat it would con- 
vey solid, useful knowledge, he would be in great danger of becoming a lunatic 
or an idiot. Good practical physicians seldom have many medical books, and 



28 . 

the few they do have are but little read. Practical dealing with disease soon 
drives away the mists, contradictions and absurdities so abundant in medical 
literature. 

Much is said about different systems of medicine. There is no [system in 
medicine. Medical Art is not the result of the demonstrations of science, but 
of experiment pure and simple. It would be just as fitting to speak of a system 
of sculpture, and a system of fiddling, as a system of medicine. If there were 
an established system in medicine, the doctor's work could be pre-determined. 
Though medical literature is abundant as the locusts that plagued the Egyp- 
tians, the duty of the physician can only be indicated by the occasion and cir- 
cumstances that demand his services. Doctors disagree ! In the intensified 
language of the day, that is no name for it. In the same case one physiciau 
vomits where another expresses the positive opinion that emetics are conira in- 
dicated. This one proposes a cathartic; that^one declares that physic would 
needlessly weaken the patient, and it is his especial aim to prevent a movement 
of the bowels. A fourth insists upon the application of blisters or antimonial 
sores. The fifth says it is outrageous practice to interfere with the integrity of 
the skin, and to take away that strength which the patient needs a to throw the 
disease. This doctor does wonders by sweats. Is confident that he could 
sweat out a typhoid. The** next M.D. knows sweating weakens a patient. He 
don't know it does anything else. 

Practical medical truth is buried under the verbiage of the schools. The in- 
struction of popular medical works is an ignusfatuus that leads to bewilder, and 
dazzles to blind. The precepts of medical literature shock both common sense 
and philosophy. The great work of the medical teacher of to-day is to unlearn 
the public of its errors. Men have so long helplessly leaned upon doctors, that 
they seem almost incapable of independent thought in medical matters. Such 
is the power of authority made by schools and associations, and utterly without 
the support of science, that it induces thousands daily to submit to treatment 
outrageous to reason and destructive to vital power. This wonderfuPpsycho- 
logical influence folds in its embrace not only the ignorant and illiterate, but 
men of intellect who have devoted their lives to literary pursuits. 'Tis true, 
'tis pity ! and pity 'tis, 'tis true ! 



SCIENTIFIC DOCTORS NOT HEALERS. 

The flourishing state of the medical profession, the great number of practi- 
tioners that rapidly make fortunes by doctoring, is demonstrative proof that 
popular medicine has little in common with the healing art. If the labors of 
these doctors were exclusively devoted to the removal of disease, the effect would 
be manifest m their diminished and diminishing numbers. Their work should 
continually abate the aggregate amount of disease and consequently lessen the 
number of practitioners as it reduces the source of their^ subsistence . If pop- 
ular medical sects would give positive evidence of skill in the healing art, their 
work should constantly tend to make their own services less in demand. Skill 
in healing is self nullification. That is the best doctor in any community, who 
by his wisdom and art so preserves the health of his patrons^as to make his 
services unnecessary or at least rarely in demand. If by his medicine and in- 
struction in a single visit a doctor aborts a lever, or breaks down an inflamma- 
tion that would otherwise have run thirty days, he gets only one thirtieth of the 



29 

recompense of the unskillful physician whose services would be required for as 
many as thirty visits. It is a fair presumption then, and a just estimate of 
ability, that of a given number of doctors who have an equal number of patrons 
under equally favorable circumstances, that is the best and most skilful one who 
has the least to do. The best evidence then which the representatives of pop- 
ular medicine could furnish of their power over disease, would be to make their 
services unnecessary to the public, if not absolutely yet proximately. It is self- 
evident that such is the tendency of medical skill. 

Proper treatment of disease is not only curative but hy genie. To remove 
the source of disease in the most simple and effective manner is to lay the foun- 
dation of health. Usually such treatment conveys valuable and saving instruc- 
tion to the patient. A good physician, from the very nature of his work, will 
so disseminate hygenic principles as to continually diminish the medical require- 
ments of his patients. The highest skill in the physician is to abbreviate dis- 
ease and to prevent what would otherwise have culminated in malignant disor- 
der, But this skill is rarely appreciated or compensated. The patient does not 
know what he has been saved from, and cannot, therefore, properly estimate 
the services rendered. Doctors who have many patients who are very sick, and 
sick for a long time, get both reputation and money. 

Healing is very unremunerative. It ]s disease-making and protracting that 
pays. We had a patient who paid us a certain sum of money for sixty days 
medical treatment. At the end of forty-five days he asked to have one-fourth 
of the money refunded, on the plea that he was completely restored to health. 
Had he not been entirely cured at the end of sixty days, he would not have 
been dissatisfied w T ith the investment of the whole sum. 

Organized or sectarian medicine does not depend solely upon natural 
or fortuitous causes of disease for business ; but by its own drugs, combina- 
tions and public teachings it puts causes in operation that make employment for 
its own practitioners. An individual is doctored with calomel and opium for 
the first time. This treatment is the setd of perrenial diseases. From that 
time the profession has a heavy mortgage on his earnings, from which it draws 
compound interest. He is doctored into disease with calomel and other poisons, 
and calomel is still used to doctor the disorder it has made. 

Calomel when taken into the system in health or disease produces the signs 
and symptoms of a malignant inflammation, and that of a far more obstinate 
and persistent character than most spontaneous inflammations. Opium is a 
powerful stimulant astringent that increases arterial excitement and causes a kind 
of delirium even in health . Iron and quinine are powerful clogging tonics, and 
therefore every way adapted to the aggravation of febrile and inflammatory ac- 
tion ; yet the use of these agents in many forms of fever and inflammation, is 
authorized by the teachings of the allopathic schools. At the same time they 
repudiate those simple febrifuge medicines that are always direct and effective in 
their action to abate fever^and inflammation, and never do any harm. Thus it 
is that * ( scientific" medicine confounds the common understanding in regard to 
the action of medical agents, and debauches the public mind in regard to dis- 
ease. It condems what heals and saves and authorizes what makes, intensifies 
and protracts disorder. Its self-created authority destroys self reliance among 
the people, and discourages domestic treatment. , 

We have before remarked that scientific medicine is largely artificial, ingeni- 
ously creating a demand for its own services. A community possessing only a 
limited acquaintance with the simple rules of healing, at once annihilates medi- 
eine as a distinct profession. For instance, the Shakers maintain no professional 



SO 

doctors. They claim to have had but one case of typhoid fever in thirty years, 
and that they say was the result of oversight, and is not likely to happen again. 
They say, sensibly enough, how absurd it is to go to a doctor for the recovery 
of your health, who is interested in keeping you sick. Other communities have 
demonstrated the uselessness of an organized medical profession. Repeatedly 
in my practice I have known a calomel doctor employed through the influence 
of fear and ignorance to visit a patient weeks, and in one instance sixty days 
after my treatment had reduced every manifestation of disease except what the 
doctor made for himself. 

It is a curious fact that skill in healing is incompatible with distinction to its 
possessor. The most skillful have the least to do. Healing is a negative art. 
It consists chiefly in arresting and preventing disease. Unlike painting, 
sculpture and music it can leave no enduring monuments of the artists work. 
No healer in modern times has achieved cosmopolitan eminence or any consid- 
erable fortune ; and it is highly probable from the nature of medical art that the 
reputation of Esculapius, Hippocrates and Galen was owing to other causes 
than to their healing powers. The reputation of all sectarian doctors is mostly 
local and purely artificial or professional — -m:-.de for themselves by themselves, 
on the principal of mutual admiration and eulogy. Jenner, for his application 
of vaccine may be thought an exception. But his discovery was preventive 
rather than positively healing. And his case furnishes another demonstration 
of the hostility of the profession to progressive medicine. He experienced at 
the hands of the profession all that imdL'o and envy could inflict. It resisted 
his discovery as long as resistance could avail. Harvey's discovery of the cir- 
culation of the blood, although.it was purely scientific and not directly connect- 
ed with the healing art, met with the same opposition. 

The healing art is too simple ia its principles to admit of its practitioners ac- 
quiring an extensive reputation. Dr. Dixon, of New York, has attained greater 
notoriety by his profound skepticism of the efficacy of medicine, than has at- 
tached to any healer of our times. All that has been established in regard to 
the treatment of acute disease may be comprehended and practised by men and 
women of ordinary capacity. That these simple arts are not better understood 
is a reproach to the people of the nineteenth century, though this want of 
knowledge is undoubtedly due in part to systematic efforts of professional medi- 
cine to keep the public ignorant. Domestic medical art is sneered at, condemn- 
ed and repudiated by the scientific practitioner, whose fortune depends upon 
his ability to repress everything like self reliance among its patrons. 

The art of reading is not so simple as that which relates to the management 
of acute disease. Half the amount given to doctors would pay for instructing 
every head of a family in the action of the most important medical agents, and 
also when and how to use them . Only feeble light in this direction would en- 
able the patron of the physician to detect and expose those very superficial arts 
by which a fever or inflammation is sometimes protracted H\e or eight weeks, 
that could be subdued in as many days by appropriate treatment. There are 
cases occasionally that require close and long attention from the physician. 
These serve as an effectual blind to the patron w 7 ho being ignorant of tne princi- 
ples or rules governing medical art, cannot tell when these occur. 

All medical sects are opposed to the healing art — at least so far as their or- 
ganized and combined action is concerned. No sect or organization works for 
its own destruction. The vitality of medical sects is in disease. The more 
disease the better they thrive ; the aggregated influence of association cannot 
promote cure when the tendency of cure is to the destruction of the association. 



31 

What man in a race is going: to run fast when it is the hindmost who wins 
the stakes. In such organization there is a tendency to the exclusion of the 
most reliable curative agents, and to the introduction of those which make 
and prolong disorder. Like the manna which fed the children of Israel in the 

wilderness, the agents oi' cure are scattered broadcast by a bountiful providence 
over the whole earth ; and like that manna too, they perish by every attempt 

hoard or monopolize them. There an 1 many enterprises in the affairs of life 
in which co-operation, association and organization are commendable because 
the interests of the association and those of the public are identical. It is quite 
the reverse in medicine, which thrives upon the misfortunes of its patrons. 
Medical organization, therefore, is stimulated by its own interests to increase and 
prolong disease, which is the source of the power and wealth of its members. 

Thus one can see plainly enough that healing is a positive danage to the 
medical profession. The very excelbncy of the healers work makes him hostile to 
their interest 

In order to confound the judgment of unmedical persons, and to excite pro- 
found reverence for science, the profession sometimes authorizes the most absurd 
treatment, such as the application of ice to sufferers from asiatic cholera; and 
the use of calomel, and alcohol and narcotic stimulants for the reduction of deli- 
rious nervous fevers. * 'What is the remedy in this case ?" inquired a student 
of his tutor. ''The remedy," said the old doctor, "is warm water, but the 
practice is cold water." How could the remedy be one thing and the practice 
another \ Very easily. The schools and associations may establish a practice, 
but experience determines the remedy. The schools and the associations are 
interested in the prosperity of doctors — they are not equally interested in the 
removal of disease. So extensively has the popular judgment been perverted 
by the mineral practice, that many people think it necessary that, in order to be 
made better, one must first be made worse. Whereas the curative effect of a 
true medicine is direct from the first. With the best treatment, fevers will oc- 
casionally find their victims in early and middle life. But, in enlightened coun- 
tries, where we have the benefit of scientific medicine, a much greater number 
are killed # by the doctor's drugs. 

Mrs. P . called upon me and said she had just got out of doors after a long- 
run of fever that, she said, had cost her upwards of seventy dollars, though she 
lived within a short walk of her doctor. She wanted to know if I could do 
something for her towards the recovery of her health. It was plain to see that 
she had once possessed a superb physical system, and it was sad to note what 
change had been wrought by seventy dollars worth of scientific doctoring. '*I 
had," siid she, "when I was taken sick, beautiful teeth — look at them now;" 
and her eyes filled with tears. Several of her teeth had fallen out and the re 
maining ones were black and loose. Her nerves were shattered and made sus- 
ceptable to every change of atmosphere, and her whole system withcut tone or 
recuperative power. If there is any time, in the history of an individual, when 
lie should be free from disease — when he should least need medicine — it is un- 
doubtedly just after a fever properly treated. Malignant fevers do indeed tem- 
porarily impair energy; but, when they do not take life, they do not taint and 
disorganize like the calomel doctor's drugs. 

Mr. 0. lives in a neiodiborino; town of Crawford Co. Said he was thrown 
from a horse and had two of his ribs broken. Having a wholesome dread of 
doctors he determined, if possible, to do without their services. Two weeks 
had passed and he had so far recovered that he could get out doors and direct 
matters on his farm. He was every day improving; but, in an evil hour, was 



32 

persuaded to send for a doctor, The first drugs he took brought him to his bed, 
where his ingenious doctor contrived to keep him for four long months. From 
this bed he arose with the loss of most of his teeth (by calomel), and the per- 
manent impairment of what had been a strong, well-balanced physical system. 
His doctor bill amounted to one hundred and fifty dollars, to say nothing of the 
damage he sustained by being unable to direct his affairs. This was ' 'scientific" 
doctoring; and it is only by the aid of the sacred name of science that men are 
enabled to practice such barefaced villainy. 

' 'The apothecary doctors," said a plain spoken man from the country, "charg- 
ed me over one hundred dollars for killing my wife with calomel. I am myself 
poisoned by the infernal drug, and never expect to recover from the effects of it. " 

A large percentage of the reform doctor's time is devoted to the renovation of 
systems racked, tainted and prostrated by mercurial treatment. These human 
wrecks are to be found on every hand, though the number is scarcely suspected, 
except by those who are called on to undertake the difficult task of rebuilding on 
the ruins. 

"I have come a long distance," said a woman of twenty-five years, "to see 
if you can do anything for me," and she showed two crippled hands and arms. 
The left hatid was stiffened at the wrist, and the fingers so contracted as to 
render the hand useless. The right arm was adhered at the elbow joint, and 
stiff. The palm of the hand was turned down, the two bones of the arm being 
crossed and immovable, and the whole limb without function. ' 'I had Typhoid 
fever, and my doctor, who is a regular bred physician, said the fever took a 
bad turn." 

"This is the work of poison, Madame, given by your regular physician. 
Typhoid fever may kill, but it never produces such effects as these. " 

Thus is poor humanity tortured and crippled. Every considerate person 
must know that drugs which produce such terrible results locally, must shatter 
and deprave the whole system. And so it w r as in this case. This unfortunate 
woman was not only deprived of the use of her hands, but had other ailments, 
the effect of poisonous treatment of the gravest character, such as she could be 
redeemed from by no medical skill. 

Mr. W. is blind in one eye, and nearly so in the other. This is his story :— 
4 'I was living on a homestead which I had earned by hard work . I was worth 
two thousand dollars. I took an inflammation in one eye and applied to a regu- 
lar physician. His treatment increased the malignancy of the disease. I went 
to New York to a more ''scientific" doctor, and within one month I lost entirely 
the sight of an eye, and the disease had attacked the other. I doctored on 'till 
I am as you see, nearly blind and a beggar." The result would have been far, 
far better had he not went near any physician. The tendency of inflammatory 
action is to abatement. With quietude, spare diet, and good nursing, he could 
scarcely have suffered permanent impairment of his eyesight. 

Many cases of fever especially of that class called nervous, beyond a perad- 
venture, are made by certain modes of doctoring. We were called to see a lady 
in Meadville. "Dr." said she, " what is the matter with me ?" "You have 
fever, madam." "Yes, but what kind of fever," she inquired. "That is 
more difficult to tell. It has not the appearance of any legitimate fever with 
which I am acquainted. " The patient then informed me that a short time before 
she had been terribly salivated by calomel and had not been well since. Fur- 
ther investigation showed that this fever was a secondary mercurial fever, caused 
by relicts of mercurial compounds still in the system ; and this disease-making 
practice is scientific medicine ! 



33 

IH the city of Buffalo I was called to sec a young man. We were requested 
to examine the patient and report to his friends in an adjoining room. "Well 
doctor, what is the matter with him." "He has a bilious attack," we replied. 

"A bilious attack, indeed ! why, a prominent surgeon and practitioner of the 
city has been called to attend him and says he has typhoid fever. That he will 
probably be sick four or five weeks at least. He has prescribed calomel to be 
followed by milk punch, with Dover powders at night." "I can assure you 
that the young man has no typhoid fever, but the treatment you have named, if 
continued, will be pretty sure to make one." A fever would be generated in 
any well person subjected to such treatment. At the urgent request of the 
friends we took charge of the patient, visited him four times, and three days 
later saw him down town going to settle with his "scientific" doctor. 

Such developements would be much more frequent but that " scientific'' 
medicine has such a grip upon the public mind that the victimized patient once 
entangled in the meshes rarely escapes, but is doctored on to the bitter end. 
One of the saws by which this influence is maintained is that "It will not do 
to change medicine." The doctor may lose patient after patient. Those that 
still live mav be hourly sinking under the effects of their poisonous, disease- 
making dru/s, and when the confidence of the friends of the sick in the skill of 
the doctor is giving wav, thev are told that it will not do to change medicine, 
and thus thousands have been deluded into the acceptance of this absurd dogma. 
That any person having a modicum of common sense should be influenced by 
such a doctrine shows how blindly and slavishly the maxims of medical auto- 
crats are accepted by their patrons. The most limited understanding should 
he able to comprehend the propriety of discontinuing the use of drugs which 
are not reaching the case, but which are making new disease. If a man's hand 
is in the fire, how much argument should be required to convince him of the 
propriety of withdrawing it. Ah! how profound are the precepts of "scien- 
tific" medicine. 

The most popular medical sect, that which has most immunities and receives 
most goyernmental favors — that in which the practitioner most rapidly acquires 
a fortune — is also the most corrupt — is least successful in healing — and as might 
be expected, has least faith in the curative power of medicine. Sects become 
rich and powerful in proportion as healing arts are ignored and laid aside, and 
their place supplied by disease-making drugs. 

Doctors, like other people, are governed by motive. The doctor who works 
in combination — that secures business by the authority of his association and 
not by his skill, sees with his eyes half open that his mineral drugs and chemi- 
cal poisons make him more business than medicines. He therefore easily learns 
to forget the latter and to rely on the former, especially as he i& compelled in a 
measure to use and recommend them by the terms of his fellowship in the med- 
ical fraternity. "Come with us," said a member of one of those combinations 
when we first came to Meadville, "join our association and we will take you 
by the hand." " Upon what condition ?" we inquired. "Oh, that you use 
and recommend our agents," was the reply. That is, if we would endorse their 
disease-making practice, w r e could have their protection and be a 'scientific" 
doctor. If not we must expect their hostility and be called a quack. 

The medical sect next lower in the scale of popularity is obliged to do a little 
more for the patient Having less "scientific' prestige it is not allowed to 
make so much disease. As you go down the scale of populaiity, you will find 
more and more simplicity, integrity and effectiveness in the treatment of disease. 
The reason is plain. Having no adventitious support in the shape of combined 



34 

associatians, and not being able to humbug in the name of science, they are 
obliged to do their best. 

If vou want evidence of the retrogressive character of scientific medicine, ex- 
amine the contents of the drug stores they mainly patronize. You will find 
their shelves filled with foreign drugs, no more necessary for the cure of our 
diseases than Japanese clogs are for the protection of our feet. Many of these 
articles, when they are unadulterated and of full strength, (which I am told is 
seldom the case,) are good medicines; but we do not need them. Our coun- 
try abounds in roots and herbs of more value for the removal of acute or 
chronic disease than all the foreign drugs in the country . Ipecac, gamboge, 
senna, jalap, squills, rhubarb, colchicum, etc. , etc. , are all good medicines, but 
we do not need them. We have better, that cost only the digging and prepar- 
ing. But scientific medicine so far as it could has ignored and contemned do- 
mestic remedies. A knowledge of their uses by the people would be very 
damaging to the profession. Even the foreign medicines named above are not 
extensively used by the ' ' regular. " They are too curative and unprofessional 
in their effects. ' ' Scientific" medicine does not want medicines so much as 
drugs, chemicals, compounds of mercury, antimony, iron, bromine, arsenic, 
etc., etc. These are pets of the profession. With these the scientific man 
can doctor, and doctoring with these does in no wise injure the business, for the 
more they are used the more remains to do; and there is no fear of the people 
appropriating these drugs for domestic use; they experience enough of their 
disease-making effects in the doctors' prescriptions. 

There is a tendency in sectarian medicine for healing arts to fall into disuse 
and forgetfulness. Many individual members, whose consciences protest against 
the use of disease-making minerals, are often a little reconciled to their use on 
the plea that they are required to use them by the association, and they cannot 
sustain themselves as independent practitioners. Many men have great facility 
in reconciling themselves to professional requirements Chat put money in their 
pockets. 

As time passes doctors come to have an indistinct kind of faith in the absurd 
arts and practices that originated in sectarian interest. An observing mind will 
easily satisfy itself that there is nothing too extravagant to be believed if it only 
be enforced by a sufficient amount of authority. No doubt there are educated 
physicians who really believe calomel to be a medicine; and as faith increases in 
injurious and inutile drugs, real remedies are laid aside till a knowledge of their 
efficacy is lost or forgotten in the death of those who alone knew their virtue. 

The history of medicine is not definite. Tt is impossible to form even a 
proximate idea of the sumber of medical sects which in different times and 
places have, rose and reigned and fell. But it is certain that a great many have 
passed away without leaving a single enduring principle as a monument of their 
existence. Tongue cannot tell the number of disease-making drugs and appli- 
ances that one medical sect or another has introduced into the popular practice 
of the times. Commencing with mercurials there is a long list of mineral com- 
pounds that are utterly without value to the healer as curative agents. So far 
as their medicinal virtues are concerned, the whole catalogue is notfto be com- 
pared in value with any one of a hundred plants that grow in abundance 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. Chemical compounds are the 
work of men's hands. Chemists make drugs to doctor with. It is only the 
Creator who makes medicines that heal. Chemistry has never originated a 
single medicine. It is not likely it ever will. If it were in the power of chem- 
ists to make real curative medicines, like those which abound in the fields, the 



profession would abandon the chemists; because their work would tend to de- 
stroy the profession. The most "elegant preparations" are inferior in acute 
disease to a simple decoction of crude leaves, root or bark. 

Infinite wisdom lias so planned the laws of organization that the healing arts 
are ever within the reach of the poor and humble, and almost as cheap as the 
pains and the dews of heaven. Riches and science have striven in vain to 
monopolize them, but the more they have clutched at them the more they have 
eluded their grasp. Innumerable modes of treating disease have been resorted 
to in different times and places. Vast numbers of these have passed into ob- 
livion. Of those still in use none have stood the test of all ages but those 
involving the use of remedies found in the vegetable world, and those simple 
cessory appliances almost always within the reach of all individuals. 



MEDICINE NO SCIENCE. 

What is seh'-stvled Scientific Medicine is a mode of practice in which the 
treatment of disease is pretended to be the legitimate result of scientific investi- 
gation. And such is the ignorance in regard to medicine that this absurd, 
misleading and false conceit obtains extensive endorsement by all classes of peo- 
ple. Only a superficial knowledge of medical art will convince any rational 
mind that no amount of scientific attainments will ever enable any practitioner 
to predetermine the appropriate treatment of disease. It is claimed that the 
medical use of Iron has a scientific basis. We showed in our article on Iron 
that no scientific analysis of the blood demonstrates a want of iron in that fluid. 
And that if in any case there w 7 as a deficiency of iron no personal appearance of 
an invalid will enable us to determine that fact Lastly, if we could be made 
to know the fact of its deficiency we do not know that iron, given as a medicine, 
assimilates and supplies that deficiency. We do know that when iron is given 
it removes no disease, but tends to fix, immovably, that which is in the system. 
Your Scientific Doctor has much to say about empirics and empiricism. An 
empiric is one that tries experiments; but every educated physician knows well 
enough that all there is or ever was in Medical Art of the least value is empiri- 
cism — experiment, and the results of experiment. Medicine has not been, is 
not, and never can be scientific; medical treatment is not even based on the de- 
duction of science. 

Medicine as a healing art consists in the appropriate treatment of disease. 
The attainment of any amount of Science does not determine that point. 
Chemistry, Anatomy, Physiology are Sciences, but a knowledge of them does 
not give us the slightest clue to the appropriate treatment of disease. Many 
men who have spent the vigor, vivacity and genius of youth in the acquisition 
of Sciences supposed to be at the bottom of medicine, who have devoted long 
years to the classification and description of disease, have sadly failed as curists 
or healers. Indeed they have more than foiled; they have become skeptical in 
regard to the healing power of medicine just in the ratio of the learning they 
have exhausted. And this is much as if a pupil of Raphael should declare his 
want of faith in the beautiful and sublime art of painting, because, after acquir- 
ing much Science, he found himself unable to paint as well as his immortal 
master. 

Medicine is an art depending upon knowledge obtained from two distinct 
sources. One of these sources is a knowledge of disease ; the other, a knowl- 



edge of the effects and action of medical agents. A proper use of these knowl- 
edges can never be determined by Science. 

A hot and dry skin — pain in the head, back and limbs, with the pulse at one 
hundred and twenty beats per minute, point to no remedy for the disease of 
which these are the symptoms and signs. Neither fever, inflammation, or 
any other form of disease carry with them any indications of cure. I know it 
is common for doctors in certain cases to say the indications are thus, or so. But 
this is only the judgment of the doctor, trained a little by previous experiment 
of his own or others. Science never has, never can help us here . Our knowl- 
edge in this direction is entirely empirical — purely the result of experiment. 
When medicine should be given ; what medicine should be given, and how 
medicine should be given, are questions of Art, not of Science. If these 
points could be fixed by Science there would be but one mode of medical prac- 
tice among civilized men, and to err in that would be in the highest degree 
criminal. There are different schools in Art, but there are no schools in 
Science. 

Though Science- does not enable us to predetermine appropriate treatment of 
disease, there is one way in which it may be used, properly enough, as a profes 
sional prefix. It is appropriate and truthful to say, scientific disease-makers. 
For it is easy to determine by Science what will make disease every time. And 
" scientific" doctors do agree in the uniformity with which they make disease. 
But when they try their hand at healing it is impossible to predict their treat- 
ment. 

No amount of scientific study solves a single question of treatment. Even 
the most profound knowledge of* disease implies no ability to treat it. There is 
no authority whatever for the treatment of disease but experiment. Scientific 
medicine, therefore, is a misnomer. He who claims to be a "scientific" doctor 
is either ignorant of the force of the language he makes use of, or is an im- 
postor. 

All medical sects wish to be thought scientific, just as hypocrites like to wear 
the livery of heaven. Science is used as a shield against criticism, and makes 
exclusiveness and intolerance plausible. But the true sons of Science are broad- 
minded and tolerant. Agassiz asks not the akl of exclusive combinations, but 
quarries out the granite blocks of truth, unaided. 

Self-styled scientific medicine, of all schools, is sectarian, and is aggressive, 
persistent and unrelenting in maintenance of the articles of its creed. Its dog- 
mas, put in practice, make disease, and it always wants to monopolize the busi- 
ness of doctoring the disease that it makes. It refutes its own title by its per- 
petual strivings to compel opinion, and to crush out independent effort. No 
honest, conscientious physician, who earnestly devotes himself to the good of 
the public, will be allowed to get a living if it be in the power of organized 
" scientific" medicine to prevent him. 

"You cannot succeed as an independent practitioner," said a "regular" to 
me one day. " What ! not succeed, if I am really able to control disease V I 
inquired. "No," said he "no matter how skillful you are there will be un- 
seen influences that will nullify your best erf)rts. Everywhere detractors in 
the interest of the organized profession will belittle your best work — magnify 
and herald every little failure, and even censure that which most merits com- 
mendation. Your patrons will be persuaded to discharge you in the midst of 
your most successful labors, and ignorance and prejudice will be set in array 
against you. What ! succeed because you are successful in treating disease ? 
That will be the most substantial reason for crushing you out. " 






No one can doubt that "scientific" medicine does progress as civilization ad- 
vances. Bat this progress consists in its increased facilities for imposition. It 
introduces new appliances which are only artful contrivances to increase profes- 
sional business. It brings forward new agents which are not remedies, but new 
sources of disease; and it gives us new modes of treatment which are only new 
Bugs Humming the patient into slumber while the doctor empties his pocket. 

u Scientific" medicine is a mode of treatment in violation of physiological law. 
If it seems to remove one disease it usually leaves behind it a greater. Real 
science ought to simplify appliances of treatment. But what is called Medical 
Science every way makes treatment more complicated. 

No medical sect will admit any other mode of practice to be scientific. But 
each claims for itself what it denies to all others, which is sufficient proof that 
none are scientific. 



HIGH SCIENTIFIC ATTAINMENTS NOT NECESSARY TO THE 
SUCCESSFUL PRACTICE OF HEALING ARTS. 

True healing arts are simple. They depend upon an ability to judge of a 
few ill conditions of the human system, and a knowledge of the remedies for 
those conditions. Sectarian medicine, in order to keep the public ignorant, and 
to compel them to pay for disease making and protracting, has associated these 
simple arts with other arts, appliances and sciences, altogether irrelevant and 
of no practical utility to the healer. 

Chemistry is a science of o;reat value; but a knovvledo*e of it is not essential to 
the practice of healing arts. If chemistry has furnished any aids to the practice 
of medicine, the physician can avail himself of them without the necessity of 
himself being a chemist. Healing arts, however, are not dependent on chem- 
istry. They existed in their purity before chemistry was known. Essentially, 
chemistry has done nothing for the healing art. It has not jKoduced a single 
agent that may truthfully be called a medicine. It has improved the form of 
some organic agents, and made them more convenient for use. It has not im- 
proved their action . 

Great stress is laid upon a knowledge of anatomy as a basis for the practice of 
medicine. It is interesting to the medical student to know 7 how to locate the 
principle organs of the body, especialy the visceral organs. It is a pleasing oc- 
cupation to study the mechanical contrivance of the human system. It is a still 
more attractive and fascinating pursuit to acquaint oneself with the functions of 
different organs in the study of human physiology. But a knowledge of these 
sciences forms no part of the healing art, which is dependent on observation and 
experience or experiment. 

Anatomy gives us no knowledge of disease. There is no disease in a dead 
body. Disease is a condition of the living organism. One might as well look 
among the ruins of a temple blown up by gunpowder for the purpose of ascer- 
taining the elements and intrinsic qualities of that destructive compound, as to 
look into a dead body with the view of acquainting himself with the nature of 
disease. Disease can only be studied where it exists. If a dead body gives us 
no knowledge of disease, how can it possibly teach us the remedy for it ? A 
knowledge of anatomy is of service in surgical art, but surgery has necessarily 
no connection with medicine. 



Although we ate mainly indebted to the vegetable kingdom for healing 
agents, still a knowledge of the science of botany is in no wise connected with 
medicine. To be able to name, classify, and even describe the physiology of 
plants, is no guide to their medical virtues. And, contrawise, one may be 
familiar with the medical properties and uses of a multitude of plants, and not 
even be able to recognize them when growing in the held. The physician 
meets with most of his agents in the form which best serves \he purposes of 
commerce. The study of their uses is entirely independent of their form, cks 
sification or physiology. 

Sydenham and Laennec of the past, and Flint and others of our day, have 
devoted much time and study to the developement of an art for the detection qf 
thoracic diseases. It is claimed that this art owes much to the discov- 
eries of modern science. The value of the art, supposing it to be reliable, 
is greatly exaggerated. It is not of the least service in the treatment of the dis 
orders whWi it is claimed that it enables us to describe. But, in truth, science 
has done little or nothing for this art. The signs upon which this theory is 
founded are furnished by the living, not by the dead. All of them, so far as 
they determine the presence of disease, are independent of anatomical know- 
ledge, and may have served the physician a thousand years ago as well as they 
do now. Before it was known where the lungs in man are situated, or before 
it was known even that man had lungs, there is no reason why disease in those 
organs may not have been detected and successfully treated. We acquaint our- 
selves with disease by the study of its signs and symptoms, and not by the cut- 
ting up of dead bodies that have no disease. Inflammation and other affections 
of the lungs are attended by certain expressions that must have been regarded 
by the observing physician as characteristic of the presence of those disorders. 
These signs have been the same ever since man has had his present organization; 
and were as traceable at any time in the past as they are now by the light of all 
our science. We cannot dissect a man while living to examine his lungs; and 
if we could, they would tell us nothing of disease, but only the effect produced 
by it. 

But this art of exploration, auscultation, percussion, etc., is very unreliable. 
Practically there is nothing in it but what might have been known, and proba 
bly was known to the ancients, and to studious, skillful physicians of all times. 
Whatever can be detected by the eye, the ear, the sense of touch, could always 
have been so detected. 

Not many years since the writer was present, with other medical students, in a 
hospital of a large city, where several learned professors — former pupils of Flint 
— were exhibiting to the class what they called a case of phthisis, or tubercular 
consumption of the lungs. The patient coughed, and was greatly emaciated. 
A professor in a medical college, together with several other professors, per- 
cussed this patient with his fingers and also with a hammer and plate. He 
auscultated the patient with naked ear; that is, he studied the respiratory 
sounds by placing his ear to the chest of the patient. Pie also studied the 
respiration by the aid of a binaural stethoscope. He palpated the patient; that 
is, he tested the lungs by the use of his hands. He also endeavored to measure 
the inflation of the lungs by the eye. This he pronounced a clear case of tuber- 
cular consumption of the lungs. Four days later the patient died, and the 
writer was present to see the post mortem examination. And, reader, what do 
you suppose was found? Why, a pair of lungs in every respect perfect and 
sound. The man died with abscess of the liver. 

The ready apology will no doubt be put forward that Science is no way to be 



39 

blamed because these men made a mistake. No, Science is no way to be blamed, 
because there was no Science <<> blame. If one could determine the true con 
dition 0$ the lungs in disease by Science, no such mistakes could occur. This 
mode of judging of disease is only an art, and an art which is very unreliable, 

as we have shown, even in the hands of those who are thought its best repre- 
sentatives. The humbuggery and imposition practiced under the pretense of 
skill in this art are immense, and so gross that the veriest simpleton ought to be 
able to detect them. By this ait any man may explore the chest and describe 
a supposed condition of the lungs. And whb can refute his statements? We 
are not allowed to dissect our patients to see whether the doctors' diagnosis and 
prognosis were worthy of their confidence. So the whole thing resolves itself 
into a mere matter of opinion, and this opinion rules with the patient, not ac- 
ccording to the science and skill of the doctor, but exactly in proportion to the 
authority that backs it. The professors who made the mistake, narrated above, 
may make such blunders every day, and their practice will not be injured by it, 
for such an expose of their ignorance and refutation of their diagnosis might not 
occur again in a lifetime. And if it did it would be likely to happen only 
among medical students, who, if they belong to any medical sect, would have a 
motive to conceal it. 

A young doctor, fresh from the study of Sydenham and Laennec, and from 
the instructions of the polished Flint, was eulogizing the perfection of this art 
to an old physician whose early studies did not embrace this pet of the profes- 
sion. The old doctor listened attentively until he had made an end, and then 
remarked in a squeaking voice, and in a style all his own, ' Yes, yes ! God, 
God ! but you can't see in there after all ! !" 

When the writer was attending medical lectures, a woman was brought be- 
fore the class, laboring under a severe attack of inflammation of the lungs, for 
the purpose of enabling the students to study the disease. She was the sub- 
ject of study for several days. Much was said over the case to enable the stu- 
dents to detect and describe the disease, but not ten minutes was devoted to the 
study or explanation of means that would relieve or cure. She was suffering 
terribly, and proper medical treatment would have relieved her in two hours. 
The question naturally arises, did the school devote itself to the promotion of 
healing arts, or was its main object to teach such arts as would enable its pupils 
to make most money out of disease ! 

The conservative principle of the human race requires that healing arts should 
not be dependent upon science, nor a high degree of civilization. The truth of 
this proposition is demonstrated in the fact, that the human race existed and 
flourished in population, in a savage or barbarous state, before science began to 
be developed. In regard to population and general purity of health, many bar- 
barous and even savage tribes are quite 011 a par with civilized nations. Their 
number may be abridged by war and religious sacrifices, but not for the want of 
"scientific" doctors. No where among savages are the effects of malpractice so 
woefully manifest as in civilized countries where scientific practice is relied on 
by the deluded people. Does high civilization change therapeutic law ? Not 
in the least. Inflammatory action in a savage is the same that it is in a philoso- 
pher. No special statistics are necessary to convince any well-informed rational 
mind that there is more disease; that it is of a more persistent and intractable 
character where "scientific" doctors abound than it is in those remote districts 
where the isolated inhabitants cannot avail themselves of medical science. Dis- 
ease made by poisonous drugs is far more obstinate than spontaneous disorder. 

No savage or barbarous races have declined and perished for want of scien- 



40 



tide medical knowledge. They do much better without it than we do with it. 
They probably do not pay their doctor as much for making disease as for remov- 
ing it. It is safe to say that we pay ten times as much for making disorder as 
we do for curing it. 



POPULAR CREDULITY. 

"I think I shall quit practicing medicine," said Dr. Williams, a " regular ,! 
friend of mine. " Will you tell me the reason?" I asked. " Well," said be, 
4 'the people are becoming so credulous that I am disgusted with professional 
experience. Formerly, if a man once got introduced into good families, he 
kept them as long as he Avished. But now a man is sure of nobody. I find 
some that I thought my most reliable and sensible patrons running after healing 
mediums, clairvoyants, electropathies, "Indian doctors, and every species of 
quackery . Talk about the intelligence of the people ! I verily believe the 
world is going backward. 

It was a naive and innocent conceit of the doctors, that they are retrograding, 
because they are leaving the calomel practice. They are really on the high road 
to progress, using their own faculties, perhaps for the first time, to find a better 
way. If the child falls, it is because he is trying to walk alone. He would 
never fall if he continued to lie in his cradle, nor would he ever leain to walk. 

It is not those who are testing every new pretension that stand in the way of 
reform . They are indeed the r^al progressives. Do you tell me they get im- 
posed upon and humbugged ? possibly, but it is likely they have always been 
imposed upon. If they have not found it, they are, nevertheless, looking for a 
better vay. It may cost them something to learn, but they are determined to 
be educated, cost what it will. There is another class that has not dared to 
(piestion the immaculacy of the old doctors. These pride themselves upon be- 
ing blindly wedded to impositions. Their stupidity is chronic. The old way 
is good enough for them. As their fathers did before them, they are contented 
to 2*0 to mill with the grist at cue end of the ba£\ and a bio: stone to balance it 
at the other. If one tells them to divide the grain and so avoid the necessity of 
carrying the stone, they say, practically, that what was good enough for their 
fathers is good enough for them. This woman wants to be Wed, "But, mad- 
am, bleeding is permanently injurious — you can be more effectually relieved 
another way" "I don't believe bleeding hurts any one," she said. "My 
mother was bled. over fifty times. Bleeding didn't kill her; she died with 
dropsy." It would have been of no avail to tell this woman that dropsy is 
caused directly by bleeding. I referred to a man's blackened teeth and tooth- 
less gums as the work of calomel. He said his father had lost his teeth that 
way, and he did not know that he was any better than his father. 

These are your sensible, firm people, who are not led away by every kind of 
doctrine. They are not to be humbugged by any new fangled ideas. Oh, no ! 
they would like to see the tools they do it with. 

This class hangs like a clog on the wheels of reform. The disposition of 
these people to be imposed upon is idiopathic, congenital, ineradicaVe. They 
may be bled till their blood is reduced to water. They may be calomelized till 
their teeth are destroyed — till their bones rot, and until they have not a sound 
tissue in their bodies, and they will still cling to this destructive practice. 
They never venture to. criticise the treatment of a " regular " physician, but 



41 

accept it as young robins do their food, with their mouths open and their eyes 
shut. They accept popular treatment even against the evidence of their senses. 
They have no opinions of their own, but are the very slaves of authority. The 
grossest. malpractice, and the most skillful treatment, secure alike their approba- 
tion. All this comes from paying a blind devotion to what is mistaken for 
science, 

You are an invalid . You want to get well. As a practical man, what have 
you to do with the acquirements of the physician ? The best evidence of his 
ability is to be found in the character of his work. That is the best science for 
you that heals your malady. Here is the conceited Mr. A., whose pockets 
have been leeched for twenty years by systematic orthodox medical treatment. 
His own person bears the impress of its disease-making drugs, still he fancies he 
has a mission to warn the public against pretenders. * 

No man of common sense in these times has the least doubt that what is 
called Allopathic practice is a stupendous failure. In the most intelligent and 
investigating communities the percentage of those who are leaving it is greatest. 
Its maime 1 and crippled victims are seeking relief in every direction. You tell 
me that in many instances the people go to the "merest mountebanks and medi- 
cal hucksters. Well, that only demonstrates how desperate their case is — how 
entirely they have failed to get relief from their old doctors. The multiplication 
of new medical sects is proof positive that old ideas in that line are going out, 
because they have been weighed and found wanting. In the United States 
there is a vast population that stands confounded, amazed, disheartened by the 
outrages, cruelties, follies and absurdities of old school practice. They turn to 
the right and to the left for relief and faith. You who fancy yourself a public 
sentinel cry out through the iron collar of precedent you have worn for ages, 
4 ' Beware! Beware! of these reformers. They have persuaded and turned 
away much people." 

But this crowd does not heed you. These people have a suspicion that you 
are some way connected with one Demetrius, a silversmith, who has grown rich 
by selling little silver shrines and gods to the ignorant and credulous. They 
suspect that your solicitude about ' 'imposition" arises from the fear that you will 
lose the monopoly of it. 

Credulity ! The people are not so credulous as regular doctors are skeptical, 
and it is but natural to expect that invalids will look otherwheres for relief from 
disease when what is called scientific medicine acknowledges its inabilitv to cure. 



REGULAR PROFESSIONAL SKEPTICISM. 

Perhaps there is no fact better established than the skepticism of Allopathic 
physicians in regard to the curative power of their medicines. Many of the 
ablest writers of the calomel school have exhausted expression in the display of 
their skepticism of medical art — or as they vainly scall it, science. Dr. Dixon, 
of the New York Scalpel, says that "putting medicine into the mouth to cure 
disese is an absurdity. You can cure a man or a pig, but you can only do it 
when he is dead." A distr guished English physician calls medicine "the art 
of conjecturing.'' The celebrated Abernethy said, "disease is multiplied in 
proportion to the number of doctors." It is left for the reader to decide 
for himself whether the doctor doubted the power of medicine to cure, or the 
integrity and skill of his professional brethren. I think it was Dr. Good who 



42 

said that "we know nothing of the effects of medicines except that they will 
kill." Dr. James Graham, alluding to the classical refinements, tinsel glitter and 
hifaulutin hypothesis of * 4 scientific" medicine, says, "It hath in every age 
proved the bane and disgrace of the healing art." That is precisely what we 
trust we shall be able to show in these pages. Dr. Rush, of the University of 
Pennsylvania, says of "scientific" medicine, ' ' Our want of success i« owing to 
the following causes: First, our ignorance of the disease; second, our ignorance 
of a suitable remedy." It is impossible to read the more prominent works of 
writers on "scientific" medicine and not to be convinced that they all lack faith 
in their calling as a healing art. A volume might be filled with testimony 
going to prove this fact. 

This skepticism in, regard to the efficacy of medicine has been communicated 
to many otherwise intelligent people outside of the medical profession by the 
power of authority of prominent medical writers in connection with a knowledge 
of disease made by mineral drugs. The author of "The Poor Rich Man and 
the Rich Poor Man," puts in the mouth ot a physician the following language, 
addressed to one of his patients: "Medicine has no more- tendency to remove 
your disease than it would have to restore your leg if it had been sawn off and 
thrown away. Medicines, drugs, my child, are poisons. We are obliged to 
give them to arrest the progress of acute disease, but in chronic diseases they 
obstruct and clog the efforts of nature and confound her operations. 

How it is that poisons must be given to arrest the progress of acute disease, 
while they aggravate chronic disease, the writer does not explain . The difference 
between acute and chronic disease is in most instances the same as that between 
a colt and a horse — one is oldeMhan the other. But this conscientious doctor 
says further: "I'll tell you a secret, my child; the older we doctors grow the 
less medicine we give. " The constant use of mineral drugs is very apt to shake 
ones faith in the power of all medicines. While these drugs, themselves, have 
undoubtedly been introduced through the influence of exclusive organizations in- 
terested in making and protracting disease . 

This want of faith is more characteristic of the denizens of cities and large 
towns than of the inhabitants of rural districts. There is mere artificial life, and 
greater departure from nature, in cities than jn the country. It would be as 
easy to make some people doubt the testimony of their senses as to shake their 
faith in the efficiency of medicine. 



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